MINISTER TAKES SERIOUS VIEW

Southland Times, Issue 23378, 9 December 1937, Page 6

MINISTER TAKES SERIOUS VIEW

ACTION OF WORKERS CENSURED STEPS TO BRING ABOUT SETTLEMENT (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, December 8. The steps he had taken to bring about a settlement of the Auckland waterfront dispute were related by the Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in the House of Representatives today. The Minister, who followed Mi- W. J. Polson (Nat., Stratford) said the men concerned had not played the game with the Government and their fellow unionists in New Zealand. By their actions they had tended to wreck the prospects of the workers generally and for that reason he took a serious view of the situation.

“I am no more in favour of industrial disputes than the member for Stratford and I have done a good deal more in my time to bring about industrial peace than he is likely to do if he lives for a thousand years,” said Mr Armstrong. “The terms of an agreement should be strictly adhered to and it is the duty of the Labour Department to see that such agreements are observed. The workers are not the only people who break agreements. “I heard nothing of the dispute until last Saturday,” added Mr Armstrong. “I immediately made representations to the shipping companies and also got into touch with the Watersiders’ Federation, which was meeting in conference in Wanganui. I did everything possible to bring the parties together with a view to effecting a settlement. OFFICIALS AT WANGANUI “Had it not been for the fact that all the leading officials of the union were at the conference at Wanganui I hardly believe the trouble would have occurred,” said Mr Armstrong. On my recommendation the conference allowed the Auckland delegates to return to Auckland immediately and a representative of the shipping companies agreed to go to Auckland at the same time. They met immediately on Monday to discuss the points in dispute. “When I thought sufficient progress was not being made with the negotiations,” continued Mr Armstrong, I again got into touch with Mr J. erts at Wanganui, and told him that the Government held the federation responsible, and that we wanted him to proceed to Auckland. Mr Roberts arrived there this morning, and he apparently conveyed a message from the Government as to the action it would take if the dispute were not settled.” Mr Armstrong said that three or t°ur hours’ delay in loading would be made up by the men before the ships left port. He was not justifying what the watersiders had done. The union that had a clause in an agreement, at its own request, whereby disputes were to be referred to a disputes committee without a stoppage of work had a duty to observe that condition. If it did not do so it was not playing the game by its members, the Government, or the people of the country. , “If the union has no more control over its members than to allow little gangs of men to take the law into their own hands and cause hold-ups, then it should not be allowed to retain its registration,” said Mr Armstrong. “People who do that sort of thing are betrayers of every decent principle of unionism and should be expelled from the union.”