UNIONS HOODWINKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27387, 12 May 1950, Page 5

UNIONS HOODWINKED

Campaign Against Profits CLAIM BY FORMER TUC OFFICIAL NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 8 p.m. LONDON, May 11. “ I think the British trade union movement has been led on a wild goose chase in the campaign against profits, because if 80 per cent, of British economy is to remain under private enterprise it has got to earn something—if only to pay the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, and that is putting it on its lowest level,” said Mr Edgar Harries, former head of the Organisation Department of the Trades Union Congress, speaking at a meeting called to discuss trades unionism in the United States. Mr Harries added: “ I have never known a period when profits have dropped or become negative and wages have continued to increase. I know of many trade union negotiations—the recent engineering claim is the latest—which have started with the claim that an increase is available out of the profits of the industry. That is perfectly legitimate, but you have got to have profits before you can claim anything out of them. “ I frankly confess,” Mr Harries said, “that I do not see the reason for this antagonism to profits that has grown up. I feel that a considerable section of the British trade union movement has been led up the garden on this subject. If you are going to have wages out of profits, you have got to have profits—that is elementary.”