ONE GREAT UNION.

NZ Truth, 5 October 1918, Page 3

ONE GREAT UNION.

Dear "Truth," — I write upon this subject because, while perhaps not the question of the hour, it is the..question of the very near future. For the workers to be banded together m one great union is the oiily means by which they will gain sufficient power for the great fight between capital and labor. It has long been recognised by the moving spirits of the labor movement and thinking workers generally that there are classes of workers, some of whom are not alive to the fact that their welfare is identified with the

welfare of the working-class generally, while there' are others who, while recognising the above fact, are afraid through fear of various results, to attempt to improve their position. The men who perform hard manual labor believe that, it is amongst the whitecollared, gentlemen, who perform clerical work and the men m dress-coats who parade di*apers' establishments and the men m general who have nice easy jobs where they hardly soil their hands, that many are to be found who are afraid to make an honest attempt to help the cause of labor or to ex,pose themselves as champions of any attempt to better their living conditions, which may be anything but congenial. What is the cause of these people being afraid? ."Well, many of them have followed one. special calling from youth; they haye 1 grown up with it, and become identified with it as it were. Each one of ; th 7 ese lias grown to look upon his employer, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So, as a being inseparable from his existence, as . someone by whom he stands or falls. To imagine the condition of one of these persons who has left his employer is to imagine a fish out of water., and flapping helplessly., upon the bj^a.cjh. Such people are quite -afraid; to cfojjmy thing \yhich would earn the disapprobation of their employers. Others, again, are not m such a condition of fear as the >'ibove, but they are sufficiently inclined that way to be quite useless m any labor movement. Again; ■ there are some whose conditions of labor are friirly ■ good and are fairly, comfortable, and who do not .recognise that it is but just that they should attempt to improve the 'condition of their fellows who are not so happily circumstanced as themselves. What is to be done with workers such as the above. Obviously they will help themselves if their actions do not endanger their billets. The best way to help all workers is to form one :?reat union of workers for the whole of New Zealand. Strikes and attempts to raise wages are useless actions against capital. Employers wtfll raise wages and will also raise the price of the commodities they sell. Thus the employers will give away small profits with the left hand and draw m large profits with the right hand. The workers outnumber the capitalists, and could have the laws of the country made to their liking if they all pull together. It is the strife and dissension and lack of agreement amongst them that is the cause of their undoing. Some, reading this way, regard it as a cheap solution of a great difficulty, and say that the workers' control of politics might result m chaos. Such a reader has only to read, think, and observe to see that the present condition of a great section of the working-class is lamentable. The suffering and starvation m cities is a damning proof m some cases of the hardness of heart and ruthlessness of the capitalist. The employment of little children m factories m various parts of the world for long hours at work, which strains their mental and physical faculties, while they make .profits for what may honestly be called a cruel employer, is proof of the brutal natare'of some men. Therefore, the worker must be m a position to protect himself. Let us be honest, howfever. If we were to turn employer-to-morrow, and had to employ labor, we should probably at once wonder at for how small a price we could obtain ni.iv .labor. This is still another argument for my assertion that the workers m cTMiernl should have one great union, so that if we turn employers the workers that are left would have power to force us 'to "vielrt them good living cnndiUnns.' The working conditions m Miis country ore by no means ideal. Exploitation of the workers is carried on under the very noses of th<? workers, and there are thousands of famiHps who,- through high rents and the high coFf of living Find low wages, lead rather a- miserable existencp. Ts th-s an ide*l condition of affairs? No man, who thinks, enn say so! Let the workers band together and make conditions co -that it shall not be possible fnr emnloyors to innko profits through the jsuffriviii.trfv -of little phiVlran nnd the nerve-strn inert nnrt clipc- I "*^ existence of miserable worker* — Yrmrs. pi c ., ■ " "ONLOOKER." Manawatu.

KHE&SJ