DRIVERS’ UNION MEETING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27041, 28 March 1949, Page 6

DRIVERS’ UNION MEETING

Sir,—l read with interest the meagre report of the Drivers' Union meeting held on March 22, and I feel a little interested in It relative to attendance and the subsequent resolution passed in support of the dogmatic carpenters, who have a democratic way (the Arbitration Court), but will not take it. Two pertinent questions I ask through your columns: (1) How many members attended the meeting, and were they expressing the feeling of all members affiliated with the union? (2) What notification of the above meeting was given? I intend to give the answer which I feel is the correct one in both cases. The first is that 23 members of a total of approximately 400 to 500 cannot, and should not, have been allowed to have such a motion passed, except by postal ballot of all members. The second answer is, If the secretary notified other union members as brilliantly as he did the taxi drivers, then little wonder the small attendance. To give fact to this last statement, let me put before the members the notification in relation to time and place. One read in the posted notice, sent to his place of employment, that the meeting was to be held in Burns Hall on March 22 at 7.30 p.m. The advertisement gave this hall as the place of meeting, but at 8 o'clock.—l am, etc.. I Am a Member. [The president of the Drivers' Union, Mr A. W Milne, stated that, as the correspondent admits, all Dunedin members had notification of the meeting, either through advertisements in the press or notices posted at their places of employment. A mistake was made in the time given in the advertisement, but because of this the meeting was not started until 8 p.m. While he did not under-estimate the value of the postal ballot, Mr Milne said that he considered that members of the union who took the trouble to attend the meeting were entitled to adopt a motion such as that under discussion. If any members disagreed with what was done at the union's meetings they had the remedy in their own hands—to attend all meeting* called—Ed. 0.D.T.l