UNION DISPUTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24450, 8 November 1940, Page 8

UNION DISPUTE

MR SEMPLE'S ATTITUDE WORKERS REBUFFED REFUSAL TO INTERVENE (Per United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH. Nov. 7. That he has no intention of inter-.-fering in the dispute between the men. employed on the South Island Main Trunk railway and the executive of the New Zealand Workers' Union was made Derfectlv clear by the Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) to-day in reply to a telegram which he has received, reading: "A mass meeting 01 the men locked out on the Main Trunk request your presence and Mr ; a. Eddy's on the job at your earliest convenience." •' ' ' Mr Semple telegraphed a reply saying: "It is not my intentjon to comply with your request, as I have nothing to discuss with the men alleged to be locked out. Ever since I nave been Minister of Public Works I have complied faithfully with every . principle in the public works workers agreement. It is the men who have broken the agreement. They have used the preference clause when it suited them, and now they wish to ignore it because of a domestic quarrel with the union. I have never interfered with the running of the union: that is their iob not mine. But 1 am, determined that the agreement shall not be violated over disputes that are not governed by the terms of the "agree ment.

"My advice lo the men is to comolv with the terms of their agreemen t. return to work forthwith, and settle union difficulties in; a constitutional mahiier. There is no use communicating with me any further. The terms of the agreement are entirely in the favour of the men. as the preference clause was inserted at their own reauest to "protect them against nonunion labour. It is amazing that this clause should now be used to destroy the principle for which it was created. " My 'Government is carrying on this job under considerable difficulty durinn the war period. *At the moment we are fighting for bur existence with the enemy at our very gates;': and the public and the Government are in no mood, to tolerate the, hplding up" of a large public, works job on'issues that bear no relationship to. the Urgency for thespeeding upLpf its completion."