THE ARBITRATION FIASCO.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1931, Page 6

THE ARBITRATION FIASCO.

If further proof were required of the impotence and danger to industrial life involved in tlie compulsory arbitration method of controlling wages and conditions of working it can be found in the attitude of Australian wage-earners. There was a time when the Federal Arbitration Court received the full support of organised Labour in the Commonwealth. Its powers were first challenged successfully by the miners in 1917, the militants being assisted by the then Prime Minister, Mr. W. M. Hughes, though he had been one of- those most active in the Court’s establishment. By making an arrangement .with the miners outside the award they had. deliberately flouted Mr. Hughes made it clear to other unions that the Arbitration Court could be ignored without any dire results. For the next ten years employers complained of this, and that whilq they were kept to the observance of awards employees pleasqd themselves whether they obeyed or not. Tlie position became acute; and the Court was strengthened and its powers increased as far as the Constitution would permit. The electorate was asked to give the Federal Government more authority in industrial matters, but this the Ministry failed to secure. The Arbitration Court continued to function within limitation, and with the advent of the financial crisis in which Australia is now involved application was made Cor the review of certain of its awards. As a result of the evidence put before it the Court decided that in all its former awards, except two where reductions had been made recently, rates of wages must be reduced by 10 per cent. The reply of organised Labour to this ruling is to recommend a general strike throughout the Commonwealth. It remains to be seen if industrialists generally will follow this insane advice, but that it could be made by a Labour executive shows the utter ineptitude of compulsory arbitration as a means of preventing industrial strife or of adjusting differences necessitated by changing economic conditions,