COOK ISLANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26228, 12 August 1946, Page 6

COOK ISLANDS

ORGANISATION OF WORKERS

COMMUNIST INFLUENCE SUGGESTED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 10. “ There is no doubt in our minds that some delegates' of the Federation of Labour Conference, while expressing verbal loyalty to its decisions, give their real allegiance to the policy and programme of the Communist Party,” states the report of the federation delegates who recently visited the Cook Islands.

“In our opinion,” the report says, “the policy pursued by the Auckland headquarters of the Cook Islands Progressive Association is influenced by a programme and propaganda from other sources. That programme and policy are not in accordance with the Federation of Labour conception of trade unionism in the Cook Islands.”

The report of the delegates—Mr K. Baxter, secretary of the federation, and Mr T. F. Anderson, secretary of the Auckland Seamen's been made to the National Executive of the federation and endorsed.

The result of their visit to the Islands was that the Island workers passed a resolution in favour of applying for the formation and registration of an industrial union for Cook Islands workers. The delegates said they had been assured by all the leaders of the workers, and by two of the most influential chiefs, that feeling in Rarotonga was strongly in favour of a registered union, and that steps would be taken immediately to form it on the lines recommended. Adverse propaganda before the delegates left New Zealand, it was claimed, had been calculated to prejudice the success of the mission.

Quoting the notes of the industrial magistrate, Mr Gilmour, who also visited the Islands recently, the report said a fee of Is 6d was stated to have been paid by the workers of Rarotonga for membership cards of the Auckland Labourers’ Union. “So far as we are aware,” the report states, “the secretary of the union, Mr Potter, has never informed the Auckland Trades Council that he was enrolling workers at Rarotonga into his union. His action in so doing appears to call for explanation.

“The whole of the difficulties and opposition we encountered came from the Cook Islands Progressive Association, inspired by its secretary, Mr Albert Henry,” says the report “ When we remember his final refusal to accompany us as an interpreter, and his insistence that none but he and Mr Potter would be acceptable to the Cook Islanders, and also that Mr Potter took up positive action to convince him of the impropriety of his attitude, the only conclusion we can arrive at is that they had no desire to carry out the resolutions agreed to at the annual conference of the New Zealand Federation. of Labour.”