THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22391, 12 October 1934, Page 3

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES By J. T, Paul. My contention is that the quality which enables a people to govern themselves is not the instinct of men to insist on their own interests, but the instinct, weaker in some, but stronger in others, which enables them to- put the public interest before their own. —Mr Lionel Curtis. COMMUNISTS AND LABOUR. The New Zealand Worker has apparently decided to take off the gloves when dealing with the Communists. It asserts in an editorial that the set purpose of Communists is to disrupt organised Labour with a view to creating® chans, out ot which they propose to foment a revolution for the establishment of a Communist State. “In the meanwhile the New Zealand Communist leaders and their dupes ..re employing the most despicable and unscrupulous methods in their endeavours to disrupt Labour organisations, ’ says the writer. “It is their constant object to create suspicion, distrust, and dissatisfaction among the ranks of the workers . . . their immediate object is to disrupt Labour and thus set the stage for a revolution to give birth to a Soviet dictatorship, which up till now is acceptable only to a country which has for many centuries been subjected to another dictatorship—a despotic monarchy. . . • The ultimate liberation of the wageearners of New Zealand is obtainable through unity, nation-wide unity, and by democratic, constitutional means—not per medium of the Communist delusion, revolution.” PASTORAL WORKERS’ WAGES. The New Zealand Alliance of Labour and the New Zealand Workers’ Union have made an agreement with the New Zealand Sheep Owners’ Federation for slightly increased rates of pay for musterers, packers, and drovers. For the past two years rates for musterers have been £2 5s a week or 10s a day. The new agreement provides a minimum rate of £2 13s Cd a week and 13e 6d a day. . The schedule of wages and conditions under the new agreement is:— 1. (a) Musterers when employed to muster sheep for any purpose shall be paid not less than £2 13s 6d a week, if engaged by the week, and not less than 13s 6d a day if engaged by the day. Musterers engaged by the week shall receive an additional payment of 12s for any Sunday on which the are required to do any mustering. (b) Packers employed in connection with mustering shall be paid not less than £2 3s a week, if engaged by the week, and not less than 9s a day, if engaged by the day. Packers engaged by the week shall receive an additional payment of 8s for any Sunday on which they are required to shift camp. . (c) Any musterer or packer required to do snow-raking shall be paid £1 a day while engaged in such work. 2. Youths may be employed to learn mustering at not less than the following rates in addition to their board and lodging:—For the first year at £1 2s 6d a week, for the second year £1 10s a week. 3. (a) In all the above cases food of good quality and sufficient quantityincluding butter and jam, shall be provided by the employer. , (b) In all cases where it is reasonably’ practicable, musterers and packers shall lie provided by the employer with good, dry sleeping accommodation on the lulls, and proper provision shall be made, by oil-sheets or otherwise, for the protection of all bedding from wet during transit. , (c) Musterers required to travel more than 10 miles to a station shall be paid for such travelling one day’s pay. (41 Drovers shall be paid not less than I7s i 6d a day, not found, and all necessary expenses. ... (5) The provisions of this agreement shall not apply to any worker who is employed regularly as a farm or station hand and who assists in mustering or does packing for musterers. LABOURERS AND DRIVERS’ WAGES. Industrial agreements between the Christchurch . City Council and its labourers and drivers were submitted to the last meeting for its approval. The recommendations were adopted, and it was agreed that application be made to the clerk of awards for registration of the two agreements as awards to remain in force for a period of three years. The Works Committee reported that a sub-committee had met representatives ot the Drivers’ Union and had drawn up a new ageement which was similar to the old agreement with the following amendments: — The weekly working hours for Halswell quarry motor vehicle drivers have been reduced from 48 to 44 hours, and the weekly wages reduced correspondingly from £5 7s to £4 18s 6d. (This is consequent upon the decision of the council made some time ago that the quarry would not work on , Saturdays); the driver of a tractor hauling a bitumen or tar sprayer is to received 2s 6d a day extra while so engaged. In the previous agreement the driver of a bitumen sprayer only received the extra allowance. An addition has been made to the clause which provides that no deductions shall be made from wages for any cause, save for time lost through the worker’s own default in sickness, authorising the council to withhold payment of a driver who absents himself from the annual picnic without reasonable excuse. The Works Committee also reported that an agreement for approval had been drawn up with representatives of the Labourers’ Union similar to the old award with some amendments. Some of the amendments mentioned in the report were as follows:—

Hours of work for quarrymen shall not exceed eight hours each day on live clays of the week, between 7.30 a.m. and 4.15 p.m., with three-quarters of an hour for dinner and a full day off on Saturday, provid.,:! that, in the event of time being lost through wet weather, the men shall be allowed to make this time up on Saturday mornings ae instructed by the city engineer; provision is made for the payment of Is a day extra to men engaged in spreading clinkers and on mechanical concrete mixtures or handling cement: men fitting elevators al’e to be supplied with overalls as well as goggles, and men employed spreading hot mix are to receive 2s 4d an hour, and shall be supplied with goggles (the previous rate was 2s 2d an hour); household and general refuse lifters shall be supplied with gloves and goggles, ns well as with aprons, and men cleaning sumps, redding drains and cement loaders on mechanical mixers shall be supplied with overalls; provision is made for all refuse conveyances to be supplied with small first-aid outfits. The reports were adopted. THADE UNION HISTORY. The authors of a booklet “From the Martyrs to the Masses/’ Messrs Lloyd Ross and Alex. M'Lagan, have favoured the Otago Daily Times with a copy. Mr Ross is well known in Dunedin on account of his activities as a tutor with the Workers’ Educational Association and his wide interest in the forward movement. He is now acting assistant director in the Tutorial Class Department of the University of Sydney. Mr M'Lagan is secretary of the Carrington Coal Trimmers’ Union. Part of the booklet is devoted to the presentation of a few aspects of trade union history, including some investigations into the Carrington Coni Trimmers’ Union. Earlier in the year the Northern New South Wales branch of the Workers’ Educational Association organised an exhibition of trade union history in honour of the centenary of the transportation of the Dorchester labourers, known in history as the Tolpuddle martyrs. The booklet, which consists of some 60 pages and sells at Is, is divided into six sections, Mr Ross assuming responsibility for everything except those dealing with Mr M'Lagan’s union. The historical outlines written by Mr Ross are informative and in large part related to the association of the martyrs with the life of Australia. There arc some references to New Zealand, but the value of the publication consists in its contribution to trade union literature. Mr M'Lagan’s sections are also of wide interest in a field of research which is so generally neglected. In the concluding chapter, entitled “ The Workers Are Hungry,” Mr Ross closes a vivid historical word picture with a strong justification for support for the Workers’ Educational Association. He claims that “it workshop classes

in Victoria and New South Wales, its lectures and conferences on working class problems and its working class plays are doing more than official Labour to develop Labour thought on Labour problems and to provide a clearing house for the thoughts of the masses.” There is much straight speaking in this “ While trade unions may rationalise their opposition and lack of interest in the W.E.A. on the grounds of its close connection with the university,’’ says Mr Ross, “ experience has shown that more freedom' is allowed to dissenters by the university than by Labour.” AGRICULTURE IN RUSSIA. A report on “ Collectivised Agriculture in the Soviet Union ” has been published by the London School of Slavonic Studies. It is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the economic results of the Soviet experiments, with the Soviet Government’s attitude towards the harvest, and with conditions in State and collective farms. The report quotes a statement by M. Stalin, in which he said that the central problem for the Soviet economy was to accelerate the development of grain production to meet the needs of expanding industry and a population increasing at the rate of 3,000,000 a year. But the evidence of the Soviet authorities themselves shows that there is less grain per head of the population than in 1913. Although the gross production of cereals has increased by 9,700,000 tons since 1913, the true net production is only some GO or 70 per cent, of this amount. When it is remembered that an excessive share is taken by the State for the town population, the Red Army, and for export, it is clear, the report declares, that large numbers of peasants may starve even in years of abundant harvest. Even more than in pre-war days the staple diet of the peasant is bread, as the policy of the Government leaves him no surplus for the proper feeding of livestock, the production of which is in most cases half that of 1916. The net surplus of grain available for distribution to the peasants on the 50 best collective farms is stated to be only 34 per cent, of their total production. and it is the peasant who suffers by the Government’s policy of exporting grain at extremely low prices to meet its foreign obligations. The grain prices paid by the Government to the peasants in 1933 were calculated to be at least 18 times lower than the prices obtainable in the open market, and at least 10 times lower than the prices at which they were sold by the Government. The conclusion of the report is that "in most years hunger must be widespread.” The attitude of the peasants to the methods of collective farming is generally found to be one of indifference or hostility, says the report of the London School of Slavonic Studies. The yield per hectare of a collective farm is seldom 5 per cent, higher than that of an individualist farm. So unsatisfactory have results been that 23,000 trusted Communists from the towns have been entrusted with the supervision of State and collective farms, and severe penalties are imposed on offenders against their regime. Pilfering may be punished with shooting, and unauthorised trading with imprisonment for 10 years. “The impression is unavoidable,” says the report, “ that this year chaos is even deeper than it was in past years; that largo masses of peasants are destroying, plundering, and concealing grain: and that not without reason the Soviet Government is apprehensive about anti-State tendencies, frequent mention of which appears for the first time in the Soviet press.” The authors of the report find that conditions of living on the farms are generally “ extremely bad.” On a rough calculation, a “collectivised peasant ” in such a fertile region as North Caucasus, and in such a good year as 1933, earns not more than £5 a year all told. This state of affairs is attributed to the inefficiency of agricultural methods and to the fact that “the taxation and other imposts levied on the collective farms and their members are so heavy as to depress the standard of living to the lowest conceivable level." As for the status of the workers, the report declares that, although the peasants are theoretically free and the collective _ farms theoretically voluntary co-operative organisations, “ the legal status of the members of collective. farms is for all practical purposes equivalent to bondage. ’