UNIONISTS MAKE STRONG PROTEST.
ANSWER WILL BE AT THURSDAY’S MEETING
Strong protest that the Government should have power to interfere with agreements made by the Arbitration Court in any way, and at the provision of the Bill, which states that “ such orders are to be made at intervals of not less than six months ”, were made by trade union secretaries to whom the provisions of the Bill were referred this morning.
Mr E. C. Sutcliffe, secretary of the Carpenters and Joiners’ Union, stated: “ The only difference between the proposals and present constitution of the Arbitration Court is that though under the present system the Arbitration Court has authority to make either increases or decreases, the changes cannot come into operation until the expiry of the present award, while the proposed changes will cOme into operation immediately. When there was a rise in 1925 it did not come into operation until some time afterwards. Regarding the six months clause, I think it is taking away from the award what we have always regarded as the sacredness of contract. An award is an agreement between the employers and workers, and to set it aside like this is breaking contract.” Mr E. Parlane (Drivers’ Union) endorsed the views of Mr Sutcliffe. One step which would probably be taken by unions which had long-standing agreements with employers would be to cancel their registration with the Arbitration Court.
A group of secretaries, Messrs E. Snow (tramwaymen), G. H. Scales (furniture workers) and R. M. Macfarlane (timber workers) made a joint statement. They said: “ The best reply is the statement of Mr J. Roberts, at the deputation to the Prime Minister, * If a wage reduction is made the Government will have to deal with the forces of Labour, and when it is all over they will know there has been a fight.’ That this is no idle threat they will see on Thursday, when a mass meeting will be held in Latimer Square to form the local organisation.” ESSES®®®®®®®®!]®®®®®®
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19310317.2.86.3
Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 64, 17 March 1931, Page 7
Word Count
333UNIONISTS MAKE STRONG PROTEST. Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 64, 17 March 1931, Page 7
Using This Item
Star Media Company Ltd is the copyright owner for the Star (Christchurch). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Star Media. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.