ARBITRATION ROUNDABOUT

NZ Truth, Issue 510, 27 March 1915, Page 6

ARBITRATION ROUNDABOUT

SHOULD THE COURT RESUME ?

PRYOR'S SPECIAL PLEADING fOR PLUTE

"Truth. has shown m several articles what it considers, the merits and demerits of industrial arbitration as conducted and practised m New Zealand. It has demonstrated clearly the unequal struggle which Labor has waged against the Employers'. Federation for so many years. It has been asserted by the fluters for Fat that Labpr gained enormously by the increases. ..in, wages awarded by the Court. So far as the actual amount of wages is concerned this is true, no doubt, but an increase m the amount of wages paid does not always imply a relative increase m the amount of commodities and comforts it can provide the receiver 1 and his dependents. And to dp this last is the aim and object of all Trades Unions when they .enter the Arbitration Court and demand a readjustment of wages m their favor. After over twenty years of experience,- however, the majority of intelligent workers have been forced to the conclusion that their last condition is worse than their first. This is no haphazard or partisan pronouncement, but is •borne out to the letter by a careful analysis of the returns contained m. tlje New, Zealand Year Book, compiled from information collected by the oflieers of the Labor. Department; Taken over a series of fifteen years these returns show that, whereas wages increased by twenty-two per cent., the cost of living m the same period had gone up 25 per cent. This shows that the worker m New Zealand, despite the steady increment of wage during the decade and a half under notice, was 3 4 per cent, worse off,, at the close of the term than he was at the beginning, from the point of view of the purchasing . power of the wages received at the respective periods. Facts- such as tliesc arc not calculated to inspire the proletarian plugs with either respect for, or confidence m, the Arbitration Court, as the result of its working, apart altogether from the question of administration, on the Clovermmtnt's own showing, is to the hurt of the workers.

In making: the foregoiug stalement "Truth does not seek to assert that the granting: of increments of wages (which m turn have been more than equalised by the increased cost of living — chiefly m the item of "rent"), embraces anything like a full .statement of the case for the Arbitration Court. It has to be admitted that the Court has m other ways enormously benefited labor, but these advantages, not being stated m terms of £ s. d.. do not appeal to the imagination of the horny-handed son of toil so effec-tively-as an advance, say, of ''a blanky bob-a-day" does. Yet from the point of view of the more revolutionary section of the working class movement, these other concessions are the more vital, because they aro of the nature of real economic gains. The reduction of the hours of labor to 48 hours per week m a largo number of industries and to 4G hours and -I") hours m others, is m tho liual analysis of much more value

to the workers than any monetary increase. The. benefit of the increased wages is so easily annulled, and will continue to be so annulled; because that very class who buy the worker's labor power hold the monopoly of those things which it is necessary he should qonsurae m order to be able to continue to produce. With a reduction of hours it is different. A reduction of three hours 'a week m the time given' up to toil^ gives the worker three hour,s more of leisure, which. he may use for his own pleasure or improvement or for the benefit of his class. True, the employer may speed up the worker, adulterate the commodity produced, or introduce labor-sav-ing machinery, but as einploj r ers are up to all such tricks of trade all the time, and, whether the hours of labor are reduced or not, these m no way detract from the value to the worker-of the additional three hours of leisure granted him by the Court. Besides it helps to make 'the worker more secure m his position or more constant m his employment, for whoreas fifteen men may complete a pi<!ce of work m one week of forty-eight hours, it will take sixteen men to do the same piece of Avork m a week of forty-five hours. This lessens tho intensity of unemployment and the reduction thus effected m the amount of surplus labor offering has a most telling effect upon the attitude of the employer towards the employee. "Truth" does not assert that these concessions, as to reduction of hours and the granting of other advantages m the terms of employment, could not have been obtained equally well by a properly organised Trades Union effort. They might. The fact remains that they were not, and that such trades as have secured them have done so through the Arbitration Court, and with this much, at least, the Court lias to be credited. Whether the credit due; to it for such concession has been more than cancelled by tho injury the present system of arbitration has done to working class organisation, by sapping the virility and militant spirit, of the Unions, is a matter on which it is possible to differ, and on which many prominent, men m the Labor movement do differ to-day. But of on- 4 thing they arc all satisfied that the day of the Court's usefulness, granting it has been of some little use, chiefly m the direction indicated above, to the working class is past.

When it was announced that Britain had declared war agaiust Gc.rmauy, the Arbitration Court, with the hearty consent of the workers' representatives, was suspended, and it was agreed on all hands that the status quo would continue until the expiry of the war. The [,'nions were not to appeal for. any increases and the employers were not to seek for any reductions. This seemed h fair bargain, hut, as the poet Longfellow loug ago asserted, Thlngft aro not what they hpimii. First. t'Prtain vuriatioiiK m the terms of specific awards were agrc.'d to, and next tlic enormous

and rapid increase m the cost of the common necessaries of life placed the worker at a great disadvantage.. In a few weeks' time lie had "suffered what was, m effect, a reduction of 20 per cent, to 30 per cent., and that independent of the action of the Arbitration Court, but nevertheless as effectively, as if the terms had been embodied- 1 by that body m the clauses of an actual award. The injustice and inequity of the position did not stop here, for while the war had brought about a position of things that was penalising the workers-, on" the other hand it had provided a peculiar opportunity for the employers to enhance their profits by a parasitical increase m prices. That employers with their usual cupidity, and m •spite of their -professed patriotism, played for, plunder is already too palpable, and the burden has grown/so irksome that the workers are. loudly protesting, through j their various organisations. In furtherance of this protest an appeal was lodged to have the Arbitration Court resume. its sitting, and the worker's statement of the case was most ablj r put forward by Mr. E. J. Carey, Secretary of the Wellington Cooks' and Waiters ' Union. While not endorsing every argument pirt forward by Mr. Carey, ■•" Truth '\ Wishes to place en record its appreciation of the' manner m which he placed the workers' viewpoint before the Court. In no instance did he overstate the case for his side or seek 1o prove overmuch. Judged by this alone, the employers' spokesman, Mr. Prydr, was lamentably at fault. In-^ contending that by* increasing Cwage&^ilie Court was but aggravating the situation, Mr. Pfybi\ declared : \ One round of increases has to be followed by another round, so that for years we have been moving m a vicious circlej and that position would be still more accentuated if at an abnormal time like this the Court were to give opportunity to unions to come "before; it with claims which, if agreed to, or partly agreed to, would result m further "burdens. being placed; upon bur m- -.; du'strieis, and " : tlie" cost" of ' living being still further increased. That -is exactly what "Truth" lias pointed out time and again, and which the Mister J?ryors and other spruikers for Plute eloquently and fervently denied. Had Mr. Pryor stopped : at ; that "w.e'Tuightf have had the £ eelirig that lie; was Tsin-cef-e irk his- contention that to re-sume--the Arbitration % Court- sittings''would be to the hurt of the coninjon weal at the present juncture.j JBut he did not stop there. Hefjsefrmit to prove too much, and he^verit on to assert that it was a point for consideration whether the cost of living had really' increased... He quoted an article by Professor Mcll wraith to the effect that people now drank .more, gambled more, wore more, a.nd ate more than ever ; that children now had 100 per cent, more lavished on them than, was grudged tlieir parents, and it Avas fair to assume that parents were equally indulgent to themselves*

It is not "Truth's" purpose to traverse Professor Mcllwraith's statement at present, but what it desires to point out to Mr. Pryor is that the professor's statement cannot possibly be true if Mr. Pryor 's former conclusion, that .the Court has been working m a vicious circle, is correct. IC the cost of living goes up with every round of increment of wages granted, then how a can the workers have more to spend on drink, clothes, food and to squander on gambling?. The thing cannot .be did, and Mr. Pryor knows it as well as anybody else. But Mr. Pryor is paid to speak his little piece, and so his little piece is spoken. This weakness of making contradictory utterances seems a habit of Mr. Pryor 's. v ln another part of his address, he tells how, on. tho declaration of war, the employers decided to carry on "Business as usual, -'and m another part he insinuates that instead of working on business lines during the past .'six: .months the unselfish employers have acted as philanthropists t awards their workers, but that, to quote the employers' mouthpiece Pryor: If they felt they were to be subjected to tho unnoyanup. trouble, ~* uml expense of contesting fresh claims at v (line like tin; present, they would got down to strict business lines. The foregoing is nothing less than n throat from the representative of the Employers' I'Yileration that, il" the Court should be so inconsiderate towards the privileges of Pluto as to grant the prayer of the proletarians' petition, then the philanthropic employers will set about to make things warm for all ami sundry. "Truth" is surprised that his Honor Judge Stringer allowed the bellicose remark of Mr. Pryor to pass without rebuke. It feels certain that had any workers' representative given as broad a hint of trouble ensuing if the Court did not * do as Labor desired, that representative would have brought down upon himself and those, he represented the bitter reprimand of the Court. It was evor thus: Plute is privileged where the proletarian is penalised.

"Truth" would like to make a further connnont m n^nrd to this "vicious circle" referred lv by

Mr. Pryor, and to point out to that pernicketty gentleman that that ; 'vicious circle" only affects the wage workers and consumers. The employing- class is not touched by it at all. This may seem an audacious statement to make, but a careful examination of the returns as to wages paid, wealth produced, income-tax paid, and standard of living, will show that, as already stated, whereas, over a period of fifteen years, the wages of the workers show an increase of 22 per cent., the cost of living concurrently increased 25 per cent., while the total wealth produced, by the workers increased 33 1-3 per cent, and the profits of the employing class, as shown by the income-tax returns and after all exemptions had been allowed for, increased by 180.2 _ per cent. Not much of a circle about those figurss, though m all conscience they are vicious enough without. They are not "Truth's" figures, nor are they Mr. ,E. J. Carey's figures. They are the percentages extracted from the Government's own returns and prepared for the use 'of the Government itself. And these figures are tho most damning indictment of the Arbitration Court as present constituted. As has been admitted by Mr. Pryor, as wages rise cost of living rises, and although, the "worker's productivity is also increasing he is no better thereby m the, end. As. the above returns of- the in-come-tax' department show, increase d productivity means increased plunder for the profitpinchers: And so it must continue, for the simple reason that the Arbitration Court is. not constituted to deal with causes, but can only tinker with effects.

Take another illustration. At the present time the • Plute. press has been expatiating on the wickedness of the. strikes and rumors of strikes which have, worried Governmental authorities at Home and m Australia. It has been pointed out m numerous patriotic prints that the workers m Britain arc 50 per cent, better off as to wages than the workers m Germany, and that the workers m Australia are 50 per cent, better off than the workers m the Cold Country. This is the usual superficial opinion. Scarcely a week passes but we. read" in one or other of the day-lie papers the pious opinions of this or that Plute prig just back from a pleasure prance around the earth's periphery, m which, it is a thousand to one, he has boen more intent pn sight-seeing, and other even less worthy amusements, than m enquiring into and comparing the economic basis as it affected the working class m the various countries through which he passed. Yet his opinions of the workers are given with an assumption of knowledge that fairly paralyses the wayfaring man. These knowing ones, like Mr. Pryor, quite ignore the most important factor — it cannot be that they are ignorant of its existence.

Modern industry has grqjvn so complex, each country m turn developing an economic structure of its own, separate and distinct from, yet, paradoxical though it % be, related and co-related to all others. When .we are told that the wages paid the British worker are double those paid the German worker, that does not mean that the Briton is twice better off than the 'German. And when wo are told that the wages of the New Zcalaud worker are twice those of the Britisher and four times those of the German, we are not to conclude that the New Zealand worker is twice better, off than the British worker and four times better off than the German workor. The two of" this country is not equal to the four of Britain, nor is the two of Britain equal to the four of Germany when minted into the needs of life. The amount that should concern the Court, is not the amount paid to the worker m so many pieces of gold and silver, and not altogether what these tokens exchange for m the shap<> of life's necessities, but what proportion do they bear to the total wealth produced by the worker. If it can be shown that despite the Arbitration Court tho worker is getting a proportionately lesser wage" m relation to the nations yearly output of wealth, then vi' n .surety Ihe Arbitration Court as at present constituted gets the workers "no forardor." These- are vital questions which will loom largo m the near future and the present profit -pinching practices of patriotic plunderbund aro likely to be a big factor m turning people's minds to v more .serious consideration of this question than they havo yet given it.

The other day Lieutenant Holbrook. V.C.. the hero of the Dardanelles exploit, writing to the London press, said that the men under his command, were freezing for want of wnroi clothing 1 . Now there appears In the Prcw. a letter from Mr. McMillan asking for w.itcrproofa nnd oilskins for the thousands of troops waiting nl No. ] BfiMo m i-Yance. Those men arc never dry. day or night. That the need ariHew (h the fnult of tlu- UrltiMh W«r OtWw. What business have they 10 leave, tho supply of clcntontary neeessitiCH to private charity In this way? The Kmpi re« has a »;reat duly m thla matter. 1 1 is for tho j'owern thai He to net* that duty 1h fuinik'd. Tho constant recurrence of such cttsca la v natiunul 3cau« dut.