DUAL UNIONISM

Southland Times, Issue 19896, 15 June 1926, Page 8

DUAL UNIONISM

ATTACK ON GOVERNMENT. COMMENT BY MINISTER OR HEALTH. (Special to the Times.) Wellington, June 14. The Hon. G. J. Andereon, Minister of Labour, refused to reply to the assertion of Mr G. 8. Thomson in Invercargill that the Government was seeking to cripple workers by the introduction of a system of dual unionism. “Whatever has been done,” said Mr Anderson, “has been in accordance with Section 11 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of last year. The position is that a union was formed in Dunedin and in Invercargill. It was found that Dunedin was too far away for Invercargill interests to be properly looked after so that a fresh union was formed. That is aIL” The statement referred to was made in Invercargill on June 8, when Mr G. S. Thomson, who is a Dunedin union secretary, was addressing a meeting of hotel and boardinghouse employees. Mr Thomson asserted that the Government was trying to weaken the hand of Labour by instituting a policy of “dual unionism,” by which two unions for one class *f worker were established in one industrial district. He gained this impression during a recent visit to Wellington, when he interviewed Mr C. A. Berendsen, the head of the legal branch of the Labour Department. Confirmation of the suspicion was given him later by a high Government official in Wellington, who had himself admitted that such was the Government’s policy. It had been carried into effect in Christchurch, where there were now two carpenters’ unions and there seemed to be an attempt to do the same thing in Invercargill. Mr Thomson added that he knew that the Minister of Labour was not in favour of the policy which his own department was carrying out. The position wae that Labour was fighting against Labour.