COLONIES AND LABOUR

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 14

COLONIES AND LABOUR

NEW ZEALAND ARBITRATION ACT., THIRD ADDRESS. BY MR REEVES.. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 11. On Tuesday afternoon Mr W. P. Reeves, director of the London School of Economics, delivered the third lecture of his series on "Colonial State Tribunals for the Regulation of the Conditions o£ Labour.'' Devoting a good deal of this address to the New Zealand Arbitration Act, he described as the most difficult and exasperating question which the court had to face, the demand of the trade unions that nonunion labour should be altogether excluded. It so happened that in the very, first case grappled with by the court this problem figured prominently. The court settled it by giving the unionists in effect what they wanted, but without absolutely and finally excluding non-union labour. While declining to say that non-union labour should not be employed, they said it should only be employed where competent and suitable unionist labour could not be obtained. That, of course, at once raised the question of how far the unions were to be exclusive. The court settled that where the unionists had this preference the court must satisfy itself that the rules were reasonable, that the entrance fee must be low, and that they must not discriminate against applicants. They must also keep an employment book, containing a list of out-of-work members, to which all employers have access. This preference to unionists had been the subject of much embittered controversy both in New Zealand and in Australia. It had been granted by the Arbitration Courts in New South Wales, but the Arbitration Court in Western Australia was specifically denied the power of granting it. When the Federal Parliament discussed the passing of an Arbitration Act the bill was blocked for two or three years because* of the strong objection to giving the court this power. The courts might now, however, grant the preference, but must not give it to any union of a "political" character. In New Zealand the preference had) been granted in about 60 awards, and had' been frequently refused. The court usedi its own judgment, and apparently was largely guided by the strength of the union demanding the preference.

Mr Reeves asked his listeners to note the ambitious character of the New Zealand act as compared with the narrower ecope of the Victorian Wages Board system, and the still nrsrower field of the English Trades Boards Act. The NewZealand Court has arbitrated upon hours of labour, holidays, amount of day wages or weekly wages, piecework prices, proportion of apprentices to adult workers, facilities to be allowed to trade union officials, the right of employers to engage, discharge, or boycott non-unionists, preference to unionists, fees and subscriptions, union employment books, and the special rates to be paid to aged, infirm, Cv less skilled workers. For the first 10 years there was a steady expansion of the powers, scope, and jurisdiction of the courts, and the act had been much more successful than even its friends expected. The years which followed were, however, more chequered.