RELIEF WORKERS STRIKE

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18402, 27 January 1932, Page 2

RELIEF WORKERS STRIKE

TROUBLE AT THE HUTT

Wise Counsel Given.

M.P. GETS POOR HEARING

SECRET BALLOT ON ISSUE

(By Telegraph.—Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Jan. 27

The Trades and Labour Council’s Unemployment Committee, after.giving consideration to the situation which has arisen in connection with the reilef works at Lower Hutt, Petone and Eastbourne, passed a resolution recommending that, in view of the conditions existing throughout the country, the men should return to work.

The committee offered its services on behalf of its unemployed members to secure for them any redress of the present grievances it was possible to obtain by negotiations, and to continue its demand for trade union wages and .conditions upon all work undertaken.

“LIONS LED BY ASSES.”

(By Telegraph—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jan. 27

Mr P. Fraser, M.P., was asked to address a mass meeting of relief workers last evening. He was given an attentive hearing until he remarked that he did not want the relief workers to develop into an army of lions led by asses.

He was then howled down and counted out, and was not allowed to speak again. In a statement made subsequently, Mr Fraser said he anticipate.! that his view would be distasteful to the vociferous section shouting for a general strike, and he was quite prepared to be howled down. He wished to make it clear that the metaphor did not apply to the relief workers of the Hutt and Petone. He was speaking directly to a meeting of Wellington relief workers, and was anxious to prevent them getting into the position described. He intended to deal with the Hutt and Petone trouble only to the extent of expressing an opinion that the grievances arising from the dismissal of the two.men concerned, was the real one, that the decision to carry out the Eastbourne water supply job under the No. 5 Scheme was wrong, and essentially on those two points the men were right. He intended to point out that it was hopeless to attempt to help the workers involved by means of a general strike of relief workers on quite other issues. He also intended to po lit out that the only people who would be injured by this course of action would he the relief workers and their wives and families.

Relief workers arc be.ng urged by a number of bodies and prominent labour men to heed wiser counsels and refrain from participating in a strike. A special committee, set up by the relief workers themselves as distinct from all other organisations, will visit the gangs and endeavour to persuade the men to remain on their jobs. This committee has arranged for a secret ballot, for which forms are already printed. Those who are urging the men to return to work declare that the Eastbourne job should never have been declared relief work.