WHAT THE RED FEDERATION ISDOING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 59, 10 November 1913, Page 4

WHAT THE RED FEDERATION ISDOING.

Writing at the end of last week, a Wellington correspondent says The Federation officials have, from the out | set, sought to bring about a general! strike, with the view of paralysing trade and industry ail through the Dominion. To do this they are feeding the public with lies. Day hy day they issue a little sheet, headed “Our Appeal,” which misrepresents the issues, and encourages the belief that the employers, hacked up hy Government, are endeavoring to “smash up unionism.” The war is one, we are told, iu which the whole future of unionism at stake. I! the employers prevail, then the strike leaders say the unions are absolutely at their mercy. The real issue, however, is that of sane unionism versus the blind, unreasoning hatred of the employing class that leads up to such strikes as the present. The “Red Fed.” leaders use as one of their party war cries, “To Hell with agreements,” They have advised the members of their “Federation” that, “no agreement is sacred”; that there can bo “no, talk of loyalty between work,ers and employers” ; that “there can be no indpstHal peace in New Zealand while the capitalist system lasts,” and

they have - urged the workers to “recognise?that e.very .agreement entered into is.mot binding upon .you.,for a

single hist amt,”, not qyen, !jf it weye signed'by a; thousand officials and rati tied by a dozen Courts.” AVas it any wonder, therefore, that as a condition of settlement, the employers should demand that some binding agreement should, bo entered into, which would provide for,substantial penalties in the event ot the agreement being broken. The companies' ’Wore' prcWVed. hist week, to accept the old agrtGihen't which had been broken by the men for a term of two or three years, with the addition of a substantial penalty clause. The stride loaders would agree to neither condition, and. only under pressure from the other unions to whom they appealed for assistance, would they re-enter the conference with the employers. The stand taken by the shipping companies and the employers generally now is, that any agreement entered into must be registered under the Arbitration Act They say, and with truth, that they prefer to deal with the unions collectively, rather than with employees individually; and the fact that they insist upon registration under the Arbitration Act is proof, in itself, that thev are not fighting unionism, nor are they desirous of crushing individual unions. They claim, and with every show of reason, that any agreement entered into must be binding equally on both sides.