UNION DISPUTE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21805, 7 November 1940, Page 5

UNION DISPUTE

No Developments Challenge To Mr Semple By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, November 6. Except that some of the 17 men now working between Taratuhi and Kalkoura had offered to strike and that the men working on the section north of Kaikoura had offered every financial assistance to the men out of work, no further developments in the dispute on the South Island main trunk railway construction were reported today. No steps were taken by either the New Zealand Workers’ Union or the men now without employment to settle the dispute. Some of the 17 men possessing union tickets and still working on the southern section were reported by the Oaro branch this afternoon to have expressed a desire to go out on strike, but they had been asked to continue their work. “We are not recognising the strike because we want to work and we are refused work." said the Oaro secretary (Mr D. D. Popplewell) who said the Kaikoura and Aniseed men who were working had promised full financial support. After issuing a statement criticising the comments of the Minister of Public Works, Mr Popplewell said that the dispute began early in September, which was in the last financial year. Any possibility of a settlement -was held up till October which the financial year began, and it was significant that in previous years the union had waited until November and December before collecting money from the men for their tickets. Statement Issued A meeting of the executive at Oaro to-day approved the following statement for publication: “We wish to correct some of the statements attributed to the Minister of Public Works. (1) “We have never at any time attempted to run the Public Works Department and neither are we desirous of interfering with its administration. (2) “Mr Semple states he is not going to employ non-unionists on the job. We have never asked him to. We have never refused to become financial members of the union. In fact, at a mass meeting held at Puketa by Mr R. Eddy (National President of the Workers’ Union) was told that if he would hand tickets to Mr Eaton, the man elected by the rank and file as organiser, every man would join up with the union there and then in the hall. That gives the lie direct to Mr Semple's statement that we were not prepared to become unionists. (3) “Mr Semple states that it was not true that Mr Eddy requested him to enforce section 34 of the workers agreement. How does he reconcile that with Mr Eddy’s statement at Puketa before 300 and 400 men that he (MrEddy) was in bed when he was notified that a few men were refusing to buy tickets and that he immediately instructed Mr C. E. Baldwin, Canterbury branch secretary, to advise tMr Semple to enforce section 34 of the agreement. Are some 400 men wrong and Mr Semple right? Fundamentally Wrong “We are not attempting to use section 34 to force Mr Semple to interfere in our quarrel. The actual position is that when the heads of the union adopted the arbitrary attitude of asking the Public Works Department to force us to do something which was fundamentally wrong in our union and opposed to all democratic principles we simply requested the Minister, who claims to believe in British fair play and justice, and also claims to abhor and detest everything which savours of dictatorship, to suspend any action, until he had given us an opportunity to state our case before him solely with the object of having this dispute amicably settled.” The statement said that Mr Semple had simply dodged the issue and had concentrated on the question of preference to unionists. “We are not fighting against the preference clause. Among the men in the dispute are some who have fought and suffered for trades union principles just as much as Mr Semple has. . . . How can Mr Semple range himself alongside officials who have refused to recognise the expressed wish of the rank and file at the ballot and appointed the defeated candidate to th; position of organised and, at the same time, endeavour to dragoon and use economic pressure on that body of men who were standing purely for the basic principles of trades unionism? . . . We challenge the Minister and union officials to agree to submit this dispute to an impartial tribunal, the findings of which to be binding on both sides.”