INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20361, 19 March 1928, Page 9

INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES

EFFECT ON SHIPPING INDUSTRY. ARBITRATION SYSTEM CONDEMNED. (Prcos Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) MELBOURNE, March -18. (Received March 18, at 5.5 p.m.) Mr W. T. Appleton, chairman of directors of the Huddart Barker Company, addressing the shareholders reviewed the industrial troubles as regards the shipping industry. He declared that through the various concessions gained under the Arbitration Act the seamen had built up an aristocracy of labour in marine circles, which the court found itself unable to control, while the shipowners’ hands had been tied behind their backs with no possible opportunity of conducting their affairs with satisfaction to themselves or anyone else. He had been forced to the conclusion that the arbitration system was doomed to failure. “It lives while it gives,” lie said, ‘‘ and when it ceases to give it will probably cease to live. The unions openly state that if the wage- and conditions are not satisfactory to them they will not work peaceably under them.” A public statement bad been made by a Seamen’s Union official that there could be no industrial peace until the employers gave voluntarily to the employees what they saw fit to demand. The employers were trammelled in every direction by a wards and regulations, which took control from those who had a practical knowledge of the particular industries. The basic wage was determined on fallacious premises, and wages were fixed without regard to output. On the other hand, when an employer in a protected industry was paying high wages with burdensome conditions and he sought assistance from the Tariff Board the men promptly sought to participate, and so the merry-go-round went on.