TRADES COUNCIL’S OPPOSITION

Southland Times, Issue 24650, 23 January 1942, Page 4

TRADES COUNCIL’S OPPOSITION

ESSENTIAL INDUSTRIES (P.A.) AUCKLAND, January 22. Considerable dissatisfaction with the new Emergency Regulations relating to essential industries was expressed at a large and representative meeting of the Auckland Trades Council of the Federation of Labour last night. It was decided to take no part in carrying out the regulations and to ask for an emergency conference of the federation to endorse the plan for co-operation in the war effort between workers and employers by a system of production committees and local councils. These bodies would have equal representation of employers and workers with a Government appointee as chairman. “The opinion was general that the regulations are coercive and more calculated to bring about disunity, than co-operation in the war effort,” said Mr F. Craig, vice-president of the council, who was chairman. The meeting was unanimously in favour of a united war effort, but took exception to the fact that the regulations had been introduced without any consultation with the rank and file of the industrial labour movement. It is considered that the only result of the regulations will be dissension. “According to the regulations, before a worker can leave his job he has to make application to the authorities, said Mr F. Craig, vice-president of the council. “This in the opinion of the meeting is a violation of the workers fundamental right to sell his labour to the highest bidder. There appear to be ample loopholes in the regulations for employers to use them to their own advantage.” The tendency would be to reduce wages to a minimum rate, said Mr Craig. In the timber industry key men were at present receiving well over the award rate, but under the regulations an employer would be able to reduce the pay to the award rate. If the dictum of a judge of the Arbitration Court were to be accepted it did not appear that there would be a remedy by way of a general order raising wages until after the war. The proposal put forward by the federation about committees was similiar to the plan in operation in the United States between organized labour and the Government, said Mr Craig. He understood that the plan worked favourably.