THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20022, 12 February 1927, Page 18

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES. By J. T Paul. ARBITRATION AND ANIMOSITY. Mr J. T. Sutcliffe, eo frequently in inquiry courts in Australia with statistics, thinks that arbitration has fostered a tendency towards animosity between employer and employees. Time was when the militants’ attack on arbitration was that it blunted the edge of the class struggle. “Things seem to have a way of turning out differently to expectation,” adds a Labour exchange. A VERY MEAN MAN. Among Auckland’s army of unemployed (says the Star) was a man who secured a day’s work in clearing up an empty section, on which the owner was about to build. Weeks of hardship on scanty fare had made this man eager to show that Ihe could work when given a chance. Alt ! day long he toiled on the plot, which was far out iu the suburbs. When he could no longer see he boarded a tram for home, happy in the knowledge that the section was now as devoid of weeds and lupins as a jellyfish of feathers. Next day ho went to a city office to collect his wages, only to be informed by the section owner that he had cleared the wrong place! So he went back, found the right section, and did another day’s solid graft, for which ho was paid. However, when ho approached the owner of the section which had been cleared in mistake, he was told to depart to regions supernatural where cooling draughts arc not. The owner thought it a great joke that he had had his section cleared free of charge, and refused to give the labourer even so much as a shilling to cover his tram fares. FOR SOCIAL PEACE. It is the right and the duty of all good citizens to use their influence on behalf of social peace (says the Manchester Guardian). The bishops and their colleagues represent certain common principles of conduct and judgment and, acting on those principles they uphold a certain view of public duty. One of the results of the awakening that followed the war has been an increasing tendency to seek to use (heir influence in this way. It is apparent in the universities as well as in the churches. Wo believe that this change will have important consequences. One of the paradoxes of our life is the way in which the workers who have political power still speak and think of themselves as a separate and oppressed class in the community. WORKERS’ SPARE TIME IN DENMARK. The Danish Department for International Co-operation in Social Questions has communicated to the International Labour Office information concerning the recommendation adopted at the sixth session (1924) of the International Labour Conference, concerning the development of facilities for the utilisation of workers’ spare time. The information deals with the work of the institutions which are concerned in Denmark with affording the workers an opportunity of empolying their spare time according to their individual capacities. Industrial and Labour Information, the weekly publication of the International Labour Office, gives full details on tins subject. HUMAN PROGRESS. “Although it is necessary to separate the idea of material development and invention from the idea of human progress, and to remember that one does not necessaril„ involve the other; yet undoubtedly the one ought to conduce to the other. Every advance in material achievement ought to react, and must inevitably react on mankind in general; and every increase in the control over natural forces must be whole-heartedly welcomed,” sain Sir Oliver Lodge in a lecture in London. “The most essential instruments of progress are the old historic human virtues of goodwill and co-operation. Fortunately, this is being more and more realised; the mistakes that are now made arc not made by viciousness; they are often the result of ignorance, misinformation, and stupidity. Sometimes, indeed, they arc the outcome of a self-sacrificing class loyalty, the antithesis of selfishness. The conscious aim and object of all our activities is, or should be, not merely a more rapid production of commodities, but the development of a healthy, happy race of beings, who can carry on their work with enjoyment and develop their lives to the uttermost. As a race we are still in the morning of the times. We have hardly yet begun to tackle the real problems which face humanity. We do not yet realise what life might be; and if each generation strives to leave the world a little better than it found it, there is no end to the good that can ultimately be accomplished.” A DEMONSTRATION TRAIN. A recent issue of Industrial and Labour Information, the weekly publication of the International Labour Oilice, includes a note on a tour made by the ; demonstration train of the Department of Agriculture in the Orange Free State. . This is the ninth tour of the demonstration train. Nineteen stops were made and over 10,000 men, women, and children visited the train, giving an average of about 540 per stop. Every day a,t an early hour a programme of lectures and demonstrations was displayed on a large board; eight to 10 lectures were given per day, sometimes necessarily two at a time. The stall carried with the train was competent to deal with 12 separate subjects. Another demonstration van tour on a much scale is noted in England. One of the Ministry of Agriculture’s black- , smiths’ touring vans was borrowed by the Kent Education Committee and went on a six months’ touj* in that county, Ino \aii mado stops five or six miles apart in rural districts. All smiths were advised by post of the arrival of the van and after the van had left, the Kent Rural industries Co-operative Society followed up by letters and personal visit. A. feature was made of having short special demonstrations for schoolboys, 15 to 16 at a time, with the idea of interesting them in blacksmiths’ work. RATIFICATION “OF LABOUR CONVENTIONS. Industrial and Labour Information, the" wee.dy publication of the International Labour Office, contains a monthly diagram showing the state of ratifications registered approved, Or recommended, and of the corresponding legislation for the application of conventions. The last diagram published shows a total of 214 ratifications registered, including four subjects, to conditious, 27 approved, am] 158 recommended. Hio oflico has just receiver! the news that the Parliament of the Sorb-Croat-blovcno kingdom has passed the Bill introduced last April to approve and give the , lcc ' JtUv to 12 conventions adopted by the first, second third, and seventh sossions of the conference. These fi cures must therefore, be added to those shown on the ahoremontionod diagram. TRADE UNIONS IN THE L’NITFD STATES.' ‘ United States Bureau of Labour has published a bulletin of the bureau entitled “Handbook of American Trade Unions.” The study covers all “bona-fido labour organisations functioning nationally, a bona-fied labour organisation being defined as ‘a group of wage or salaried workers organised for the purpose of employing economic or political pressure to improve their material condition.’ ” The report states that, while it is a settled policy of spmo unions not to divulge their membership. it is nevertheless possible in the case of organisations affiliated to (bo American Federation of Labour to estimate their membership from their voting strength at the annual conventions of the federation; when more definite figures have not been reported, those estimates have been used in the report. It was found that 156 organisations came within the definition. Of those 107 are affiliated to the American Federation of I Labour, while 49 function entirely outside It. Of these 49. some have never been identified with the American Federation of Labour in any way. ’Phis is especially true of railways, in which the ‘‘Big Four” brotherhoods have always maintained separate existence and exclusive control. Except f° r the railroad brotherhoods, some organisations in the Post Office, and the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, the unions not affiliated to the American Federation of Labour are scceders from, or “dual” to, an o animation within the federation. Those dual unions are found to some degree in all industries, except the printing trades. The aggregate membership of organisations covered hv the study was 4.443,523 — namely, 3.383,997 in the American Federation of Labour and 1.059.526 in the independent organisations and the Industrial Workers of the World. These figures include the Canadian membership of the American international unions (a total of 201,681 in 1924. according to a report of the Canadian Department of Labour). 1