FEDERATION OF LABOUR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8129, 24 May 1912, Page 1

FEDERATION OF LABOUR

CONFERENCE OPENS

PRESIDENT AND ORGANISER MAKE THEIR REPORTS.

About fifty delegates from various parts of the Dominion are attending the conference of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, the ojxening sessions of which were held at the “Maoriland Worker” offices yesterday. Mr P. C. Webb, president of the federation, xvas in the chair.

It was decided to exclude tho representatives of the daily press from the conference and to supply an official re port to the papers. It was also resolved that a verbatim report of the proceedings be specially taken and published in pamphlet form. The official report is as follows : HOPES FOB THE FUTURE. ,

In welcoming the delegates, the president expressed the hope that they would not separate until they had perfected the machinery of the organisation in such a way as to make the Federation of Labour the most complete organisation of the working class. He regardcd the conference as the most important ever held in the history of the working class movement of New Zealand, and he believed its deliberations and decisions would tend to the freeing of the workers from the injustices of capitalism.

Apointments as follow were made: — Press committee, Messrs P. H. Hickey, J. Duncan, and E. Croxvloy; tollers. Messrs E. N. Eidd, E. J. Howard, P. Richardson, T. Stephenson; minute sec-i-ctary, Mr G. Smith; timekeeper, Mr H. R. Voyoe; standing order committee, Messrs J. Dowgray, M. J. Laracy, A. Rosser, E. Gould, H. T. Armstrong; finance committee, Messrs R. N. Eidd, B. Gould, A. Paterson, J. Gumming, K. H. Dalhousie. It was decided that the conference sit daily from 9 a.m. till 12.30 p.m.,- and from 2 p.m. till 5 p.m., and thereafter as arranged. The delegates pledged themselves to divulge no information to the press. PRESIDENT’S REPORT.

Mr Webb gave an exhaustive report of executive work, referring to the remarkable growth of the membership since the previous conference held in 1910. Agreements had been made from one end of New Zcaland > to the other, ana in every case conditions had been bettered. The federation had tried compulsory arbitration, but had found that organisation in the spirit of solidarity had achieved better results. The Federation of Labour sought to unite all wage-earners into one class organisation. It had. gained the allegiance of the waterside workers and had been the means of improving their lot more thor-; onghly than had heen the ' case for fifteen years. In 1911 the federation had taken over the “Maoriland Worker,’’ issued it as a weekly newspaper and subsequently installed a plant and purchased premises. The paper had come to stay and had done good work. T, 5 > organisation had had to .fight for its existence and principles every inch of : the way, hut the present large conferenoe attested its spreading popularity and need. REPORT OF THE ORGANISER. Mr R. Semple (the organiser) also gave an exhausive report, ■in which he emphasised that he had carried out instructions in signing agreements, but in no agreement had the right to strike, or the right to make common cause In industrial upheaval, been sacrificed. He had • been somewhat handicapped in his propaganda work by the necessities of administration. As a result of his mission to Australia, the coalminers of Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand had been linked up, and the following agreement had been approved and signed; "For the purpose of more efficiently and successfully conducting wage-wars, and securing working-class solidarity in such industrial struggles as may extend from Australia to New Zealand, or-vice versa, it is hereby agreed by the New Zealand Federation of Labour on the one hand and the undermentioned industrial organisations on the other hand, as follows;

"1. That the various organisations shall make 'common cause in all disputes affecting the Waterside and Miners’ Union directly the dispute is held by the organisation which has initiated action to require the co-operation of other parties to this agreement. "2. That moral and financial aid shall be mutually rendered in industrial struggles. "3. That in industrial struggles the unions hereunder specified shall in any and all circumstances refuse, upon official notification, to assist in the production or transportation of like commodities to those affected, if such production or transportation be the means of injuring the cause of the organisation involved." Mr Semple added that he had not been able, in the .time at his disposal, to reach the rank and file of the Australian waterside workers, but he felt sure that in the future the waterside industry would also be inter-colonially joined. On the motion of Messrs P. Fraser and G. Bruce the reports were adopted, as was also the executive balance-sheet. 1 The conference will be resumed this morning.