EMPLOYERS ORGANISING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 4

EMPLOYERS ORGANISING.

FIGHT AGAINST STRIKES. GUARANTEED FUND—£SO,OOO,OOO. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, September 26. With the object of “consolidating the resources of the employers of labour of the United Kingdom and of maintaining their rights and their freedom to bargain individually with free workers or collectively with trade unions,” an association has been formed under the title of the United Kingdom Employers’ Defence Union. It will be registered as a trade union, and it has the approval of Lord Avebury, the Duke of Bedford, and other well-known men. The new organisation is the outcome of a meeting held at the Whitehall Rooms on May 26, with Lord Dysart in the chair. The strength of the movement may be gathered from the fact that at a meeting held last week two large manufacturers who were present promised £50,000 each towards the guarantee fund. There were other guarantors of £IO,OOO, and smaller sums. Each member of the union will. The Times understands, be invited to guarantee a sum commensurate with his position in the commercial world, the intention being to create a fund of £50,000,000. One of the stipulations is, indeed, that individual guarantees will become operative only when this sum has been secured. Great importance is attached to the operation of the guarantee fund in dealing with large and small strikes in the interest alike of employers and employed, and of the commerce of the United Kingdom. It has been arranged that all calls on the fund, which will be pro rata on tho whole of the members, shall not exceed 7j per cent, in any one vear. Much less than that proportion will, it is believed, be sufficient to secure adequate protection for men willing to work and employers willing to employ. In tho event of a struggle arising out of any tyranny by trade unions the members would bo backed by tho fund, and the expenditure of a small percentage in most cases would, so the leaders of the Defence Union hold, be adequate to ensure victory. The leaders of this movement emphasise the fact that the United Kingdom Employers’ Defence Union is not espousing an anti-trade union policy. They argue, however, that the vital interests of the employers in all trades must, in view of what has happened during the past few years, be defended against the new trade unionism. Had a defence union on national lines been formed a decade ago, when the master engineers successfully resisted the demands of the unions of that day, it is felt that much trouble and hardship would have been prevented. Coming to more recent upheavals, the promoters of the Employers’ Defence Union point nut that had a guarantee fund such as the union will establish been in existence at the time of tho railway strike in 1911 and of the miners’ strike last year, those disputes might have been fought to a finish and a satisfactory and lasting settlement secured. Tho guarantee fund will, the leaders of the union urge, defend members against interference of outside organisations, uphold the inviolability of contracts, and, when strikes are forced upon them, will prevent workmen from being intimidated by members of trade unions and any other kindred organisations. The Defence Union will also deal with what it regards as two pi-cat evils arising out of the Trade Disputes Act—boycotting and peaceful picketing. To amend this Act will be one of the objects of the new union, and its leaders maintain that its registration as ensure that it shall enjoy tho same privileges and exemptions as tho workmen’s unions.