The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927. STRIKE LEADERSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20005, 23 November 1927, Page 8

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927. STRIKE LEADERSHIP

Reports of strikes now appearing in the newspapers once, more make it plain that the average striker would probably take other and more peaceful means to settle his grievances if only he were left alone and that most of our labour troubles are due to the inflammatory leadership of those who are “living on the game,” men who exploit the trust of their followers and usually do nothing better than lead them to defeat. “The leaders urged them on,” says one sentence in the report of the miners’ strike at Denver, U.S.A., the urging resulting in a clash with the police and the deaths of two strikers. The type of man who pushes to the leadership of a strike usually acts more or less like that. He urges the men on, but, when defeat and suffering eome, it is always the striker (and his family), not the leader, who bears the unpleasant consequences. There are, of course, many heads and officials of Trade Unions who are level-headed and wise enough to avoid such tactics. But in a strike or a dispute, such men are frequently pushed aside by the inflammatory kind under whom the men almost invariably meet disaster. v There is a foolish and unjustifiable watersiders’ strike going on in Australia at the present time which one cannot help feeling is due to just the same kind of leadership. The first consequence will be that the men will lose a large amount of money —the rate for overtime, against w’hieh they are striking, proves that. The final consequence will be the usual fate of the striker —defeat. Reading the Sydney cables, it is plain enough that this is another instance of the leader “urging them on” and it is long odds that the men would never have taken the action they have done had they been left alone instead of being deliberately incited to trouble. It is highly significant that the Queensland watersiders insist on being kept out of the matter. Evidently the recent railway strike in that State has taught them the folly of trusting that incompetent leadership which saves its own face at the men’s expense.

When workmen choose their leaders, either for the ordinary conduct of Trade Union affairs, or to direct strike tactics, how often do they consider their qualifications for such posts? A real leader needs something more than a glib tongue. Some w ords spoken by the chairman of directors of the North Broken Hill Mines, Ltd. at the annual meeting in Melbourne recently, are much to the point in this connection. Emphasising the need for Union leaders to grasp the economies of a situation, the chairman said; “A serious situation that confronts us to-day is the attitude of the Union leaders of the counsel they give to the men. In the face of circumstances that call for co-operation between Capital and Labour, the leaders talk of still higher wages and shorter hours. I have no complaint against men who want high wages, or with Union leaders who seek to get them for them. But the State is injured and the men are injured too, if proper regard be not paid to the sources from which wages become possible. You cannot take out of the jar more than you put into it. If you force wages up on any industry greater than that industry will stand, it will fall, and those who are supported by it will fall also.”

That is an aspect of the ease that the average strike leader never stops to consider. It may also be remarked that if the mer were more given to considering it than they do, they would probably discard the agitator type of leader w’hose chief aim is to “urge them on” and choose instead men who could win something tangible for them.