TYRANNY OF THE UNIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 March 1921, Page 2

TYRANNY OF THE UNIONS

(To the Editor.) Sir.—l wonder how much longer that patient class of people known as the general public will allow themselves to be exploited by the Labor Unions? One would imagine by the claims put forward on their behalf that they represented 95 per cent, of the people instead of a small minority. For years the public have been put to coi.tinual inconvenience and expense by these bodies, and it is about time they took a Ann stand against them. That any nation gets the government it deserves is a pejfectly true axiom, and that the public of New Zealand is now governed to a considerable extent by the various Unions is entirely their own fault. They, if they did not create the. Unions, have allowed them to grow, and by their own actions have put their “necks into the noose that is now choking them. Can a more Illogical position be imagined?. Here we are complaining of the powers of the Unions and the autocratic and tyrannous way in which that power is used, and yet we compel every man to join one, and if a man lands in the Colony to-day, and comes to me for a job which I am perfectly willing to give him, I cannot do so, unless he first joins ti e Union of the particular trade I carry on. It Is not the rank and file of the men who are continually raising these disputes and making trouble, it is the officials, and the officials only, and they elirn their living by it. I have as an employee and an employer been associated with working men for the last 50 years, and as a rule they are good fellows, willing to give value for their wages and amenable to reason. But once in the Union (which we qpmpel him to join) he loses his individuality, aani becomes a. slave, henceforward to be driven bj r the Union bosses and dance to their tune. Yet the public have It in their power to stop all this trouble, or about 90 per cent, of it, by a very simple measure. Abolish preference to Unionists, and you have struck a blow which will liberate tte unionist serfs and reduce the professional agitator to impotence. There are hundreds of working men who detest from the bottom of their hearts the tactics and actions of the Unions to which they belong, but what can they do?, by law they must belong to it, and being in it must do as the bosses order them. The time is ripe for the great mass of the people now groaning under the tyranny of the Unions, the miners, the dockers, to strike a. blow for themselves and I suggest that the abolition of “preference to Unionists" as the first step which should be taken in this direction. I hope abler pens ttan mine will take up this subject, and educate the public in the direction I have indicated. —I am etc., RICHARD ROWE. New Plymouth 23rd February.