STRONG COMMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 234, 2 October 1931, Page 8

STRONG COMMENT.

Proposed Suspension of Awards. UNION OFFICIAL’S VIEWS. The statement made by the Prime Minister yesterday, that the Government was considering the question of suspending some of the provisions contained in Arbitration Court awards, was criticised this morning by Mr E. C. Sutcliffe, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. Mr Sutcliffe said that such an action on the part of the Government would , mean handing the workers over to the ; employers, who would be able to fix j their own conditions of employment. Personally he was inclined to believe , that the Government would do this. “ The Dominion,” Mr Sutcliffe added. . “ is in the hands of politicians who are j * drunk with power,’ also in a state of panic, and while they are in that state they are liable to commit any indis- ' cretion.” It had been said that the Arbitration Act was the chloroform by which the New Zealand worker was enabled to undergo the operation of living. When this sedative was taken away the workers \vould begin to realise what was meant by having to engage in an individual battle with the employers. They would realise that individual bargaining was not such a comfortable existence as that to which they had become accustomed. “ To Smash Labour.” Mr Sutcliffe said that the great bulk of the present-day workers had had no experience of the gentle art of bargaining individually with the employer for a job, and he could assure them that the employers would get the benefit every time. The employers, especially the farmers and the pastoralists, had for years been longing for such an opportunity. That opportunity had now arrived and those employers had a Government of their own politicaf caste. *’ 1 am convinced that they will do their best to smash labour,” he continued. “ The dope has to a large extent made workers apathetic to their own interests. But I am certain that they w'ill come back to a realisation of what this move means to them and that before it is all over the employers will have reason to know that there is a fight on.” Mr Sutcliffe said he would not be surprised to see the Government go further in the matter and interfere with other legislation that had been of benefit to the workers. If there was to be a trial of strength with the employers it would be just as well, perhaps, to have a really good go. “It seems strange,” he said, “ that the only remedy for the depression the Government can propose is to put the clock of progress back thirty or forty years. It seems strange that in times of depression the only remedy the employers can suggest is oppression for the workers. If the predicted changes are given effect to, I am firmly of the opinion that there will be a struggle which will pale into insignificance any previous encounter between capital and labour, and I am also certain it will leave behind a more robust and militant unionism than the Dominion has known in the past.” (A report from Wellington on this subject appears on Page 4.)