THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S TROUBLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 11 January 1913, Page 8

THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S TROUBLE.

I j MR REARDON'S ALLEGATIONS. (I’er Press Association.) "Wellington, January 10. “A deliberate attempt to trap us.” This is how the secretary of the Slaughtermen’s Federation, Mr M. J. Reardon, regards tlie line of action pursued by the Department of Labour in connection with the men’s move to cancel their registration under the Arbitration Act. The six weeks’ notice which is required by law expired on Thursday, and if all had been well the formal notification of cancellation should have appeared in the Gazette. That night no intimation that all was otherwise than well reached Mr Reardon, but when he looked for the Gazette announcement he could not find it. It was not there. “They have got ns in a cleft stick just at present,” he admitted to a pressman to-day in discussing the position which had arisen. If the cancellation is not granted before the present agreement between the men and the companies expires the men who knock off work in pursuance of the notice given to the companies last Monday will render themselves liable to the full penalties of the Arbitration Act as strikers. The agreement expires on Friday, the 17tli inst., and the Gazette will be published the evening before, while the men’s notice to thq companies runs out on the following Monday morning. Thus the Federation has no time to do anything. “Our great grievance,” said Mr Reardon, “is that we have not had a single line or word from the Department to indicate that it was not satisfied, but now that the six weeks are up and we expected to get our cancellation the Department says that it has not been convinced that a majority of the men in the Union favour cancellation. I venture the opinion that the Department simply sat tight and did nothing until I challenged the officials this morning, after 1 had ascertained that the notices were not in the Gazette.” It is submitted by Mr Reardon that by the Department’s own notice in the Gazette of November 28th, the Unions were all entitled to cancellation, because so far as they know no cause had been shown why it should not be granted. If the Department felt that they had not given sufficient proof of. desire for cancellation the proper time to make the inquiries was during the six weeks’ period, not when it was about to elapse. “If the Department had intimated to me seven days ago that they were not satisfied, Mr Reardon said, “within three days I would have produced the signatures of every man engaged in export slaughtering in the Wellington industrial district. At the present time, as it was, I sent the Department some six weeks ago signatures of all the men then engaged in our district who desired cancellation. Now I have only six days in which to get the signatures of between 800 and 900 men, scattered from Auckland to Invercargill. It is simply impossible for me to do it. If the cancellation is not notified in the next Gazette it cannot appear before the agreement expires, and we can be prevented from cancelling altogether. I discovered this thing by a mere accident,’ he went on to say, “and obviously men like the secretaries of the Canterbury and Poverty Bay Unions, who are working slaughtermen, would not be in a position to discover it at all. Had it not been noticed by me we would simply have walked into an ambush, for the Department gave us no warning at all. lam certain that if 1 hadn’t seen the Gazette and gone to the Department to demand an explanation they would have sat tight and let us put our necks into the trap. All along the slaughtermen have been pretty badly treated under the Arbitration Act. After the strike of 1907 the Arbitration Court followed them right round New Zealand, and fined 266 of them £5 each. This penalty is over five times greater than the average penalty imposed on other workers for breaches of the Act. It is also nearly double the average fine imposed on employers for breaches. The action, or rather inaction, of the Department now is calculated to involve between 800 and 900 men in penalties up to £lO apiece, in view of the fact that for their first offence they were fined £5. It is safe to assume that the penalty will be increased if they break the law' on this occasion. Wo have endeavoured to stick to the law' so far, and have on this occasion done nothing but what the law enables any union to do.” The chief clerk in the Labour Department, who was spoken to by the reporter in the absence of the Secretary of Labour, would only say that the Department in every case before it finally cancels a registration must be satisfied that the cancellation is desired by a majority of members of the applying union. The Department wms now making enquiries to satisfy itself on this point, and if any cause should appear why cancellation should be refused the union would be notified at once. He hoped that the enquiries would be completed in two or three days, ample time to notify the union and sufficient to Gazette the cancellation if it is granted.