LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18049, 8 January 1927, Page 9

LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

UNEMPLOYED OR UNEMPLOYABLE.

To the Kell tor. Sir,—The various articles on the unemployment problem appearing in the “Star” of Friday, if not helpful or illuminating, were at least amusing, especially that of a Trades Union Secretary (the supposed workers’ friend), placing himself in the chair of justice and from that high eminence proceeding to stigmatise the starved one’s cry for bread as a work-shy’s sympathyseeking propaganda andfc the empty vapourings of leaders of a new unemployed menace, “A Distinct Type.” Hobos. The methods adopted by trade union secretaries to further their own interests are much more of a menace, however, than the starved one's cry for bread, as the following incidents will prove. A few weeks ago, along with several others, I secured a few days’ work. On the second day, after a visit of the branch secretary, we were informed that preference of longer employment would be given those who became temporary members of the union governing this class of work. Already a member of a trade union, but, like the others, anxious to secure as long employment as possible, our only hope was to become temporary members of their union, for which we were charged os each. The work was finished in nine days, and we were once more of the unemployed. How much the secretary reaped out of the pockets of the unemployed for that nine days’ wdrk he alone knows. —I am, etc., A COMPULSORY 11080.