LABOUR UNIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1924, Page 4

LABOUR UNIONS.

MUST BE OPEN TO ALL, A CONDITION OF PREFERENCE. BAD CHARACTER ONLY OBJECTION!. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. While the matter of preference to unionists was being debated in the Arbitration Court to-day, His Honour Mr. Justice Frazer said that if preference was granted* it must /be oh condition that the union was open—a union to which any man was entitled to admission on the payment of his entrance fee. The only objection could be on the score that he was not of good character and other habits. The ordinary standard of living must be taken into consideration in determining this. It should not matter whether he had been engaged as free labour or whether he had taken part in activities hostile to the union in time of industrial disorder.

Mr. H. J. Young: Our policy is to get everybody to our way of thinking. If we can do that we will have no free labourers.

Mr. Hammond: It would be inteiwt* ing to know what methods are used to bring men to your way o>f thinking. His Honour: If we grant preference we want to have no misunderstanding about the conditions. A union is entitled to preference only so long as it admits applicants who are sober and of good characters. If a union admitted a strike they would destroy their right to preference, but if they said it was merely a “crisis” they can retain it. Mr. Young asserted that the shipping companies had frequently been guilty of victimising seamen simply because they were members qf the union, but this Captain Smith (the Union S.S. Companyls representative) emphatically denied.