TRADES UNION TYRANNY

Observer, Volume XXIX, Issue 46, 31 July 1909, Page 2

TRADES UNION TYRANNY

A Startling Example. IN the piping times of plenty, our labour laws, so far as the workers are concerned, no doubt prove beneficent enough. Employers hay& frequently complained that many of the restrictions laid down in the various Arbitration Awa.-ia are not only harassing to themselves personally, but are steadily tending towards the disorganisation of the trades and industries of the whole Dominion. Of course, the paid labour agitator doesn't mind this. The nir.ri: he can keep industrial matters in a ferment, the better is his chance of pocketing fat fees and salaries for bringing such matters before the Arbitration Court for adjustment. But it is more than likely that at the present time the bona fide worker is discovering that the restrictions which the labour agitator has assisted him in placing upon the employers are having a most disastrous effect upon himself, and also upon his wife and family, if such exist.

A striking example of this occurred here recently. On Friday last, the Shaw, Savill and Albion Co.'s big cargo steamer Mamari arrived in thisport from Gisborne, to load for London. She made fast to the wharf shortly after five o'clock in. the evening, and the captain, being naturally desirous, in his owner's interests, of getting quick despatch, arranged with the stevedore to put n f-'»ng of lumpers on straight away. "he arrangement, of course, was that the overtime rate of half-a-crown an hour was to be paid. The btevedore had no difficulty in getting the men ; in fact, in the present state of the labour market, he could have procured three or four times the number if he had wanted them. The lumpers, on their part, were only too willing to accept the work offered. The hatches had heen taken off, and. everything was -ready for a start, when the secretary of the "Waterside Workers' Union put in an appearance, and told the men that they must not accept the employment offered them. Expostulation was in vain. A trades union secretary's word is law to the members of that union, and the lumpers engaged had to reluctantly refuse the work and the tempting wages offered.

The explanation of this seemingly unjustifiable action on the part of the secretary of the Waterside Workers' Union is a simple one. It seems that the Award in this particular case contains a clause which decrees that all waterside workers required' for overtime employment must be engaged before 5 p.m. Since the Mamari didn't arrive at the wharf until after that hour, it is plain that the captain couldn't comply with that stipulation. The consequence was not »nly that willing and anxiousworkers were deprived of employment that would have brought high wages to them (and high wages are a consideration in these times of stress), but that the shipowners were put to extra expense through having to detain a large ship in port for a longer period than was necessary. And it must be remembered that the daily cost of keeping a big steamer like the Mamari in a port like Auckland amounts to no inconsiderable sum. And all this commotion, disorganisation, deprivation and expense was caused through the existence in the Award of a clause which certainly seems questionable.

However, there the clause is, and" there is no profit to be gained by speculating as to the cause of its insertion. It isn't cause so much as effect that is interesting. The effect in this instance has been to debar a number of men, willing and" able to work, from accepting a few hours of night work at a high rate of pay. Had these men not been warned by the secretary of the union, they would have taken, that work, with the probable result that boththey and the Shaw, Savill and Albion Co. would have ye^xsarpe^eAy.^

and possibly heavily fined, for a breach of the Award. No blame attaches to the secretary of the Union for his action. He undoubtedly took that action in the interests of the members of his union. The fault lies with those who were instrumental in procuring the iaisertion of the clause stipulating that all waterside labour must be engaged before 5 p.m. There is surely something rotten in our industrial system when, in times of unemployment like the present, men can be thus debarred from accepting work. So long as such irritating clauses are inserted in Arbitration Awards, so long will both the employer and the employee be most unjustifiably handicapped. But it is the employee who will feel the pinch most severely.