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Page 13
There had already been formed Unions of Waterside Workers and Seamen at
each of these ports; but they were in all cases registered under the
arbitration law, and of course subject to its penalties against both
officials and members in cases of any breach of the statute. The
Federation's agents proceeded to collect the members of these unions who
were in any way dissatisfied with the existing awards of the Arbitration
Courts, and to form them into new Unions outside the statute. They had
little difficulty in persuading the men that the new Unions would be free
to act in many directions that were barred to the members of the old
Unions. A good many of the men were thus persuaded to resign their
membership in the existing Unions, and as they were very often the most
active members, they gradually persuaded others to leave with them. There
was nothing either in the law or custom of the ports to prevent unionists
and non-unionists working together on the wharves or the coasting vessels;
so within a comparatively short time the members of the new Federation
Unions were more numerous than those that clung to the older ones. When
this became the case, the officials of the new Unions approached the
shipping companies with proposals for an agreement between them and the
Federation Unions in some respects more favorable to the employers than
the arbitration award under which the older Unions were working, and in
this way gained a position which enabled them to undermine the old Unions,
till they either died out for want of members or withdrew their
registration, and at the end of their six months' notice merged their
Unions in those of The Federation. The Federation's plans had been so
carefully prepared that there was little or no suspicion on the part of
the employers or of the public generally as to the true meaning of the
movement. It was evident, of course, that it indicated a revolt against
the arbitration law, but as the new unions appeared ready to give the
employers rather better terms than the old ones, many reasons were found
by employers for defending what began to be called the "Free Unions." In
this way things had gone on at the shipping ports for about two years from
the failure of the gold miners' strike at Waihi, before anything happened
to open the eyes of the public to the real meaning of what The Federation
of Labor had been doing. In that time the new Unions at each of the
principal ports of the country had quietly obtained the entire control of
the hands at waterside and local shipping, as well as of the Carters
Unions. The time had arrived when the syndicalists believed themselves
able to compel the public to submit to any demands they might see fit to
make.
The occasion finally arose, as might have been expected, at Wellington,
where the Federation of Labor had established its head-quarters. There was
no definite dispute between the employers and workers, but for a few weeks
there had been an uneasy feeling in relation to the Waterside Workers who,
it was said, were growing more lazy and slovenly in handling cargo on the
wharves and piers. A meeting had been called by The Federation to discuss
some grievances of the coal miners at Westport, from which most of the
coal landed in Wellington is brought. The meeting was called for the noon
dinner hour, and a number of the waterside workers engaged in discharging
cargo from a steamer about to sail, at once went to the meeting, and did
not return to work in the afternoon. The shipping company at once engaged
other men to finish their work, and when the men came back some hours
later, they found their places filled up. The new men belonged to the same
Union, but the men dispossessed demanded that the new ones should be
dismissed at once. When the company refused the demand, the men appealed
to the Council of the Federation, who at once called on the Waterside
Workers and Seamens Unions at Wellington to cease work. Within a few days
the position looked so serious that the Premier invited both parties to a
conference, at which he presided in person, in the hope of bringing about
an agreement to refer the matters in dispute to an arbitrator to be
mutually agreed upon. The officials of The Federation, however, said there
was nothing to submit to an arbitrator: they had made a demand, and unless
it was complied with by the shipping company and the Union of merchants at
Wellington who were in league with the Company in victimizing the men who
took part in the meeting in aid of the Coal-miners, the strike must go on.
The Merchants and Shipping Company's Unions pointed out that what had been
done was in direct opposition to the terms of the formal agreement signed
less than a year before, and they refused to have anything more to do with
the Federation on any terms. The conference thus ended in an open
declaration of war. The time had evidently come for the Federation of
Labor to make good the assertions so often made by its lecturers and
agitators, of its power to force the rest of the community to submission.
It would be difficult to imagine a more favorable position for carrying
such a policy into effect: New Zealand, it must be borne in mind, is a
country without an army. For some years past, it is true, a system of
military training for all her young men between eighteen and twenty-five
has been enforced by law, but except for training purposes, there is no
military force in the Dominion, either of regulars or militia; and it is
now forty-five years since the last company of British soldiers left its
shores. Law has been maintained, and order enforced, by a police force
under the control of the Government of the Dominion, and while the force
is undoubtedly a good and trustworthy one, its numbers have never been
large in proportion to the population. This year the entire force
throughout the country is very little more than 850, which includes
officers as well as men. It can hardly be wondered at that the officials
of The Federation of Labor were convinced that, if they could arrange a
general strike of the workers, the police force would be powerless to deal
with it. On the failure of the attempt of the Premier to bring about a
settlement between the parties by arbitration, the Federation proclaimed a
general strike of all Unions affiliated to themselves throughout the
country, and of all other Unions that were in sympathy with them in their
policy of giving united Labor the control of society. The order to cease
work was at once obeyed, as a matter of course, by all the Federation
Unions, which practically meant all the workers engaged on vessels
registered in the Dominion and trading on the coast, all workers on
wharves and piers, carters in the cities, and coal miners throughout the
country. The appeal for sympathetic assistance from Unions unconnected
with the Federation was largely successful in the chief centres, though it
was, of course, a direct defiance of the arbitration law under which they
were registered. It has since been discovered that in nearly every case it
was brought about by the unprincipled scheming of the secretaries,
assisted by a few of the officials, who called meetings, of which notice
was given only to a selected minority, and at which the question of
joining a sympathetic strike was settled by a large majority of those
present, but in fact in many cases a small minority of the whole
membership. The sympathetic strike of Arbitration Unions was mainly
confined to the cities, and Auckland, as the largest city, was the most
affected by it. In Auckland the members of practically every Union ceased
work, somewhere about ten thousand persons going on strike simultaneously.
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