OUTLOOK FOR LABOUR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8329, 15 January 1913, Page 8

OUTLOOK FOR LABOUR

PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS FEDERATION CRITICISM OF THE ARBITRATION ACT, Special to the "Times.” (( AUCKLAND, January 14. The “preference clause,” a concession that has hitherto been keenly fought for and urgently desired by militant labour unions, has proved to be an embarrassing weapon that cuts both ways. In the early days of the Arbitration Act it was grudgingly granted or strenuously refused as an infringement of the rights’of the employer of labour. In three recent and notable instances in the Auckland industrial district preference has been freely conceded, and incidentallv unions have refused membership to workers, who consequently have been defrom obtaining employment in the industry of which the workers have organised under the Arbitration Act. The blow has fallen heavily on workers who formerly were organised }^’^™ DS v h J it +T W ? r ? not registered or tte fct. reglStratioa The matter was discussed at a meetmg or about two hundred industrial uniomste in the Trades Hall last night, the Jb ederation. of Labour has invited all their trade unions of New Zealand to send delegates to a conference to be held in Wellington in a week's time to consider the same question. Last night's meeting, at which Mr F. W. Amsk, secretary of the General Labourers' Union, presided, was convened by Messrs W. E. Parry and ill E. Ganham (of the federation executive), to submit reasons why the Auckland unions should take steps to be represented at this conference. CONFERENCE DELEGATES. Mr Parry explained that the meeting was called to ask for reconsideration by the various trades unions of the circulars which had been sent round by the Federation of Labour, asking that delegates should be sent to a conference to discuss anomalies in the present position. In Huntly, under the award that had been recently granted, men who wished to join the legalised institution were refused admission, and consequently were denied the right to earn a livelihood. The same state of affairs obtained at Waihi, where preference to unionists was now enforced, and some people would say Mr Parry observed that the Federation Union had done the same thing when it was in power, but there was this vital difference, that the Federation Union did give the men a chance to join the organisation in Huntly and in Waihi. Now they did not even get a chance to join the union. The Arbitration Act had admittedly done a certain amount of good, but when it reached a state of stag, nation the Federation of Labour came into existence to fight the Arbitration Court. 1 CANCELLING REGISTRATION.

As soon as the unions began to see that the most effective way to fight for their right® was by cancelling their registration under the Act a determined effort was made to bolster up the court, and now better agreements were being banded out than had ever been the case before. Mr Parry claimed that the tramway conditions obtained in Auckland under the Federation of Labour were made the basis of the arbitration award in other centres. Militant organisation was, however, going to bo impopiblo as long as the Act remained in its present form and was being used by the Government in power to defeat the organisation of labour. The workers were split up into too many sections, and ought to be united. The federation, the speaker explained, had no quarrel with arbitrationists as such. The organisation believed in majority rule, and was always ready to abide by the vote of the majority in tho matter of cancelling registration. He concluded by urging upon unionists the advisableness of being represented at the conference in order to discuss the position that had arisen. There was a good deal of general discussion as to the relative merits of “political action” and “industrial action,” but the trend of the speeches was sympathetic towards the object for which the meeting was convened—a recognition of the serious aspect of the present industrial outlook as far as it concerned active unionists.