THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1924. THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18690, 22 April 1924, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1924. THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

The decisive step has been taken. Acting on the mandate given in the strike ballot, the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants issued instructions last night for a strike by the society's members. It took effect at midnight. Trains still on their way will be taken to their destinations but by an early hour to-day the railways will be idle. It is the men of the second division that are involved— porters, signalmen, shunters, storemen, platelayers, gangers, carpenters, blacksmiths, fitters, painters, plumbers, bricklayers, train-examiners, electricians, night-watchmen, bridge-keepers and crossing-keepers. The other employees in the service, such as administrative officials, stationmasters and clerks, enginedrivers and firemen, are not directly affected. They are, however, obviously unable to maintain a fully effective train service without the men of the second division; and the action of these men is consequently more than a refusal to do work themselves. It hampers the work of others and amounts to a dictation that a means of transport essential to public convenience and national welfare shall be put out of action. The responsibility for this drastic step rests on the executive officers of the A.S.R.S. There are indications that they took it against their better judgment. A day or so ago they were apparently willing to relinquish their objection to thorough and unfettered investigation. Their hostility to negotiations moderated. The setting up of another Wages Board was seemingly favoured. Their only objection, raised later, was to the appointment of a Supreme Court judge as chairman. Suddenly, as if forced by a propulsion out of sight, they have declared that the proposed board is unacceptable: the men must get an increase in wages without any preliminary inquiry. The alternative is a strike. Receiving such an ultimatum, Cabinet had no option. The utmost had been done toward mutual understanding, and to continue negotiations was made utterly impossible.

It is this failure of the railwaymen to avail themselves of an impartial tribunal that is the most sinister feature of the negotiations now so abruptly ended. Whatever they say, this is not a strike for higher wages. It is not a strike for reduced hours of work. It is not a strike to resist an increase in hours. It is not a strike for better conditions of work. If it were any one of these there might be enlisted on the strikers' behalf that ready sympathy with labour which is characteristic of the times. Whatever the strikers may say, the strike lacks any possible justification in such ways. The railwaymen asked, it is true, for another 2s 6d a day in order to have their basic wage raised to 2s l|d an hour; but that request has not been summarily refused. They have protested against the -14-hours week being increased to one of 48 hours; but their protest has not been overborne nor gone unheeded. They have abandoned their posts simply and solely because they could not get their own way as to how an inquiry should be conducted. It was instii tuted to consider all their claims as ,to v wages and hours and conditions of work. In order to see the whole of the facts, the Wages Board's chairman asked that information under every claim should be given before a decision on the first be made. The claims were related, he thought ; and no satisfactory finding could be reached unless there were a full examination of the whole problem. This reasonable view did not meet the wishes of the railwaymen's representatives. They would have the wages question considered and decided by itself. Because the chairman differed from them as to the beard's procedure they instituted the strike ballot. The Wages 'Board had barely begun its work. No finding of any kind had been reached. None was in sight. There was nothing to indicate that the outcome would be adverse to the raihvaymen's claims. Those negotiations have proceeded no further

since then, A strike in such circumstances, is wholly without claim on public sympathy. Indeed, the strikers have in this instance made an onslaught on the public. It is public money that will be spent on railway salaries and wages to others than the men in the second division during the strike, for wasted, non-productive days. A great public industry will suffer; quite probably a large amount of traffic will be carried during the strike days by motor vehicles using the roads, and some of this will never revert to the railways. Directly and indirectly, the public will be inconvenienced and harassed. Nor can the railwaymen themselves escape- the repercussion of their foolish step. They are part of the general public owning the railways, and must take their share of disability and loss. In one respect they have dealt the interests of the manual worker a severe blow. Never had such workers a better footing in industrial bargaining than they had in the Wages Board. Everything favoured their cause; but, rejecting their advantage and repudiating all arrangements made for reasonable discussion, they have preferred the tactics of the bludgeon. They have placed negotiation under suspicion as something to which Labour will be a party only when concessions can be wrested from others. That is to do all Labour a cruel disservice. By their folly, the raihvaymen have precipitated an experience of hardship for many, but it will be borne with fortitude, in a, determination that the offenders against the public interest shall not terrorise and tyrannise at their will. When many of these, the railway services running smoothly again, find themselves compelled to seek other employment, they will regret that conference was rejected for conflict.