THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1907. THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S STRIKE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13838, 27 February 1907, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1907. THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S STRIKE.

It may. be that the slaughtermen engaged in the various freezing works of the colony have a genuine ground of complaint in respect of the conditions of their employment at the present time, and particularly in respect of their rates of pay. Prima facie, they appear to have a good case when they allege that their earnings are hi all the circumstances hardly adequate to their work. And it will not be disputed that the long intervals that have occurred between the sittings of the Arbitration -Court at different centres in tho colony, involving vexatious delays in the revision of tho terms of employment in the industry in which they are engaged, have furnished them with a distinct grievance. But when we assunio in their favour all that can bo ■assumed, it is impossible to hold that tho action they have taken in leaving •their work in strike against the conditions under which they have been employed is other than improper and indefensible. The information which is to hand from Christclrurcli and Timaru and from Gisborne shows that the employers have in each case evinced a disposition to meet their workmen very fairly. A direct compliance on their part with the demands of the men for increased rates of pay would have been entirely inconsistent with the observance of the industrial awards and industrial agreements which are in operation, and which, while tbey are in operation, have the force of law in their application to tho industries affected by them. But the employers have professed their willingness, we gather, to treat tho next award of the Arbitration Court in their industry as retrospective so far as it may grant the men an increase in the rales of pay. This proposal the men have rejected. They are conscious, of course, of the strength of the position they occupy at tho present moment. They have just seen tho slaughtermen at Jvgahauranga and Petone compel the acceptance by their employers of tho terms they imposed. It is the very busiest season of the year for the meatfreezing companies, and the labour market is restricted. The slaughtermen are, to a largo extent, birds of passage, who como to the colony for the work that is to be. obtained at their trade in tho height of the season, and there is no surplus supply of labour, to speak of, upon which the meat companies can draw to fill the places of the dissatisfied workers. It will be seen, therefore, that the men have cunningly chosen their time for the strike. But it is, we have no doubt, a strike with which the public will have very little sympathy. For, whatever may be said to the contrary, the success of the strike, if it should be successful, will mean the destruction of t tho confidence the community has reposed in tho conciliation and arbitration law of the colony as a weapon for tho preservation of industrial peace. And if tho colony sets any store by the system it has established for the settlement of industrial conflicts it cannot view with any sort of approval the attempt that is .now being made, by a resort to methods of force, to secure the settlement of a particular trouble in a particular way. For the adoption of these methods directly involves a denial of the utility of tho arbitration law. The industrial and conciliation system

of the colony is in the scale agdinst tho claim of Ihc slaughtermen for au adjustment; of their alleged wrongs by means that have been specifically declared to be illegal. As the Attorney-general said a few days ago, a strike in New Zealand is an implied declaration that the State cannot be trusted to do justice. But the function which the State exercises in respect to the settlement of industrial disputes is not dissimilar 'from that which it exorcises in respect to the settlement of civil disputes and to tho punishment of crime. And if tho support of public opinion is not; accorded to the decisions of the Arbitration Court in the same measure and in the same way as it is accorded to the decisions of the Supremo Court, it must be evident that the fabric of the Arbitration Court will sooner or later topple to the ground. The time, wo apprehend, lias now come when tho arbitration law is to be subjected to tho strain, upon the response to which will determine the question of whether the system that has been set up hi the colony is to have a permanent existence or not. Graro issues, therefore, are at stake at the present juncture. If a strike can be successfully maintained notwithstanding the operation of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, then plainly the Act affords so little protection to the employers as to be valueless to them. We may go further and say thatif it should be admitted that members of a union may, for the purpose of a strike, dissociate t-hemselves from a union and claim the liberty to act as independent individuals, as the unionist slaughtermen claim just now, the law safeguards the employers to so small an extent as to be of no real value to .them. It would be intolerable that any body of men should claim tho benefits of membership of tho union in order to secure au award that may be advantageous to them and also claim the liberty to act as individuals over whom the union lias .116 authority when tho prospects of their securing greater advantages through independent action present themselves. Tho union must be made responsible in some way or other for the actions of its members if the arbitration law is to survive the present attack that is being made upon it and if it is to retain a permanent placo upon the Statute Book of the colony.