The Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1921 THE SHEARERS’ AWARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16530, 14 September 1921, Page 6

The Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1921 THE SHEARERS’ AWARD.

In view of the dissatisfaction expressed by the Alliance of Labour and various 'Other organisations regarding the Arbitration Court’s decision in the shearers’ dispute there will not be much surprise over the latest development. The New Zealand Workers’ Union has decided to notify shearers and shed hands not to accept engagements under the award rates, but to remain in. their present employment until the sheep farmers capitulate. It is claimed on behalf of these workers that shearing cannot be held up for a fortnight, and that the employers must give in if the employees hold out for a month. The refusal of engagements may not be technically a strike, but tho intention and effect are precisely tho same. It seems to bo hopeless to expect tho leaders of the industrial Labour movement in New Zealand to learn either by experience or from history. Hardly a strike has been started in which the rank and file of the workers have not been promised a speedy and complete victory, or where they have not been disillusioned when the terms of settlement were agreed upon. Tho recent cop! strike in the Old Country furnished the latest classic example of thou sands of workers being led into the bog of defeat and disaster by men who deluded them with extravagant promise*. The British miners did succeed in dealing a smashing blow to industry, the results of which arc onlv too visible it. the state of affairs in the Old Country to-day. Thousands of workers are unemployed, and are undergoing a period of distress which is probably unexampled in recent times. Tho connection between the coal strike and the present state of affairs in Britain *s obvious. It was . predicted when the strike was mooted, but all warnings were simply a waste of breath. The lesson should, not be lost on tho New Zealand trades unions, which should by this time realise that a strike in a key industry is not confined in its effects to the one industry. Alreadv tho problem of the unemployed is causing grave, concern, and the whole community is being urged to assist in overcoming the trouble. The Alliance of Labour itself waited on Sir Francis Bell with a request that the Government should do more to find work for the workleis. What has the Alliance to say in re gard to the latest instruction of the New Zealand "Workers’ Union, which toms down the moat practical means of reducing unemployment? The idea of the Union is that shearers and shed hands will remain in their present employment, thus keeping from the unemployed any chance of stepping into the positions which are ordinarily vacated during the shearing season. It is an attempt to make the unemployed bear tho brunt of tho shearers’ decision to ‘‘decline engagements,” oi in plain words, the unemployed are to carry op the striko while the shea re and shed hands stick to their present jobs and draw their weekly pay. The anticipation that the employers will b»* compelled to capitulate in a month is one of those optimistic hut elusive baits w-hich are so often dangled before the eyes of the dupes of the so-called Labour leaders. There is no present recognition of the fact that any body of employers who are resolved to make a stand can do so, and that Bwift and complete victory in a strike is impossible in the face of determined and organised resistance. The strike will be another blow at the system of arbitration and conciliation, which is being endangered by a series of calculated attacks in which even its supporters are being used as hostile uawna. It seems to us that the Booner the unions which favour arbitration as a constitutional method of settling trade disputes get together and make their influence felt the better it will bo foi arbitration. The disruptive forces are in full working order, and there is no doubt as to tlidir objective.