Trade Unions.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13462, 7 December 1907, Page 3 (Supplement)

Trade Unions.

An English paper " Pearson's Weekly." in the course of an article on Irade Unions savs:

It- may be ntws to some that- England is the birthplace of modern combinations »• Vt,.-Ke:o k:;« •; We Onion.-, although there were trade guilds in Ancient- Rome, and there is even a record of a strike among the bakers of those bygone days. , , The present unions are the lineal descendants of the old English guilds, which were suppressed in the time of Henry VIII. Those guilds had originated certain trade customs and it was the. at-

tempts of the working men to enforce these which gradually led to the formation of permanent combinations of employees to prevent others from evading them. In their early days they were looked upon as dangerous associations which ought to be crushed because, according to the belief of tho>:e who were opposed to them, they exercised a restraint upon trade. Gradually, however, they became a- power in the land ; workmen considered that they were protected y from oppression only by combining against the power of capital in its various forms, and the associations increased numerically with the propagation of education. As it was -with other ideas engendered in our own country, so it has been with the Trade Unions; they have passed be-. vond the limits of our own shores, and have been imitated by the people of foreign countries, and to-day the Trade Union flourishes abroad. The effect of international labour congressers has been to familiarise the working men of Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Austria., Italy, Switzerland, and even Spain and Portugal, with the essential principles of industrial organisation. Some excellent types of the Trade Unions' are to be 'found in various parts of the Continent at the present time, but ther-o is not so much freedom of combination allowed as our own laws .permit. These' associations are often regarded as political, and opposed to public policy in general, but-they are winning their way /steadily and must develop, as they have with us. y An employer in Germany may hind himijrself in conflict with the Engineers' Society or some similar union, just as a 'British, engineer employer dcei;. In Holland and Belgium we. may read of a, threatened strike of the building trades, and so on. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Amalgamated .Society of Engin-. ■eens, which has withdrawn from its participation in the great Trades Unions Congress this year, is regarded as a. model by most other countries. . ; Then, in ' France, there, are commercial tribunals known as the Councils of Prud' liomnie, lvliich .. are composed of masters and workmen. Em ploy e?s with a grievance, real oiMmaginary, take their trouble to this council ; the matter is judged, and the employer finds, if the case goes against him, tliat lie, has to pay. No matter how. indignant the French employer may be at their interference, he knows that he has to submit: An instance may be cited : A French firm sold its business; the new proprietor thought that the factory required "waking up," so they gave a. prominent employee, who apparently regarded his. situation ,as an ..-easy. life job, ' notice to leave in due form. He appealed to the Prud'homme, lie had committed 116 fault, he said, and was doing just as lie had always done, so lis churned damages for wrongful dismissal. Tin- employer had no voice in (ha mutter, and the man was awarded £25. In regard, to compensation for injury; it will be a. sufficient indication of the, law to say that... the insurance costs au cinployei' twice as much, -andj often three t'imci> as much,- as it- does here for' the same -,trade, even, under the conditions of our new Act... 1 The American Unions rather favour the system- of secret' organisation ; they are not' considered ' equal to the -Brit ish, but the workmen of- the United States have all the protection .they need and can afford to be. more independent than their brethren of other'countries. . The Knights of Labour, -which is a kind of American Jack-o'f-all-Trades Union, is of a gigantic organisation, mainly recruited from those who hav-ei no union in their own calling: I ; fis meimbea's are - sarcastically' termed "■Sor.i of Rest" by most employers. The Australian. Unions are excellent, and, in the. opinion of some authorities, beat the British in organisation. There', as in America, the best are the egiineers and the carpenters and joiners; children of the same societies in the lnoLher-cOun-try. ..; .