WORKERS CASTIGATED.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20126, 23 February 1937, Page 2

WORKERS CASTIGATED.

TUNNELLERS' STRIKE. MR SEMPLE’S CENSURE. (Special to Times). RANFURLY. Monday. “This is not playing the game. I might as well be candid. You say you decided to terminate your contract and go on day work. I alone can say that, and I can also say whether you will grease your swag straps and get out of here. If the 20,000 men on public works had the power to terminate their contracts, what sort of an outfit would wo have? 1 have created machinery in the public works agreement by which any grievances travel through the proper channels to me. I knew nothing about this until I read in the newspapers that the men had struck."

With these words the Hon. R. Semple, Minister of Public Works, roundly condemned the action of 18 men working on contract for the Public Works Department who struck at the Ghatto Creek irrigation tunnel last week for three days. The Minister visited the camp to-day. “If you had not gone back to work you would not have got me here today," said the Minister. “When I was last through here you asked me for an extra 10s a foot. I gave it to you. I knew nothing about this dispute from that time until you stopped work and put a pistol to my head. That is not the way for you to get me to do anything for you, and if you think your are indispensable to this Government, which is doing its utmost for the workers, you are making a mlstake.”