LABOR NOTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2622, 2 October 1909, Page 2

LABOR NOTES.

(By Unionist.) The general election in Queensland will be. held to-day. There are practically but two parties in the field — Ministerialists and Labor. The Labor Party goes to the polls 23 strong. It anticipates returning with increased representation, and with the aid of the few independent members likely to be returned, counts on ousting the present Kidston Government, it is generally anticipated that the contest will be a very close one. The question of land values taxation appears to be the main issue between the two parties. An award has been made in the pastry-cooks’ trade in Sydney. It providteß for an ordinary .week of 48 hours. First hands are to be paid £3 a week, second hands £2 12s 6d, and third hands £1 12s 6d. In each of the State Assemblies and in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, the Labor Party is now in direct opposition. The following is the membership of the party in the respective Parliaments:—New South AVales, 34 members in a House of 90; Victoria, 21 out of a total of 65; South Australia, 20 in an Assembly consisting of 42; and Tasmania, 12 members out of a total of 30. Queensland and West Australia have each 23 Labor representatives in Parliaments totalling 72 and 50 members respectively. In the Federal Senate there are 15 pledged Laborites, and in the House of Representatives Mr. Fisher’s following totals 27 members.

Employees in the soap and candle industry in New South AVales have just secured an award. It lias been made for three years, and is to be extended throughout the State. A week’s work is to consist of 48 hours. rates of pay are provided for the different employees.. The wage for adult male workers ranges from £2 2s to £2 14s a week. Females and youths are allotted proportionate rates of pay. Large increased wages will be paid to the shop assistants in Brisbane, as a result of the AVages Board Award in the industry, which comes into operation shortly. It is estimated that the drapers’ assistants alone will benefit to the extent of £6,000 per annum. At present the average for a grocers’ assistant in Brisbane, of 23 years of age and over is 38s sd. The award prescribes a minimum of 45s weekly, for this class of assistant. Drapers’ assistants over 24 years of age earn on the average at present 44s lOcl; when the award becomes effective their weekly earnings will he increased to 50s. In an award for the Shop Assistants (Sydney retail grocers), the AVages Board fixed the following minimum rate of wages: —Managers of shops and branch shops, £3, and with the responsibility of buying £3 10s per week; shop assistants (male or female, 14 to 17 years of age), from 7s 6d in the first six months to 35s in the seventh year; journeymen, 47s 6d to 50s. Latest files to hand from the Commonwealth inidioatc that 'the Labor Party is regaining ground in all the States. In the recent by-election in South Australia for the vacancy caused in the Federal House of Parliament by the death of Sir F. AV. Holder, Speaker of the House, though the scat was not won by the Labor candidate, Mr. Vaughan, yet the showed this remarkable fact, that since the general election, when he was beaten for the same seat by the late Speaker, Mr. Vaughan’s figures had increased by 100 per cent. He only lost the seat to Mr. Foster, the fusion nominee, by 1300 votes, the figures being Foster sioo, and A T aughan 6800. It is quite expected that at the next general election the Labor Party will sweep the boards in South Australia. The secretary of the Undertakers Employees’ Union, Sydney, giving evidence before the Undertakers’ AVages Board, said that driving a hearse was an art. Among the reasons he put forward were the slowness of the pace, which made it difficult for drivers to keep awake, and the fact that they had always to'wear a ‘‘proper countenance.”

The election of Mr. Riley, an old trade unionist, to contest the South Sydney seat for the Federal Election, by a plebiscite of members of the local leagues, has lead to a hysterical outburst by one of the defeated candidates, Mayor Leitch, of Redfern. In some heated remarks at a meeting of the League, Mr. Leitch said that a week before the ballot took place he was informed that there was underhand work going on at Botany. They all knew that Botany had only ten or twelve members on the roll, yet they could stuff the League with sixty or eighty members in one night in order to defeat him at the ballot. Mr. Riley’s friends, before the poll was declared, said that they knewMt was all right, as Botany would settle it, and Botany did settle it, but not justly so. A prominent member of tlio Botany League had told him that as Redfern, Surrey Hills, and Waterloo Leagues were stuffing the rolls, Botany would. Redfern never did anything of the kind. The fact was that the parasites of the Labor movement at the Trades Hall did not want Leitch to win. They said: “We will win the selection honestly if we ca’n; but we will win it by hook or by crook.” He received more insults in the last three months than ever ho got from the straight-out opponents of the movement. It was not the leaders of the movement that the public were afraid of; it was those parasites of the Trades Hall —men who said that trades unionists should rule. Thre was only one in every ten supporters of the Labor movement that was a trades unionist. The labor movement was a people’s movement, not a trades union movement. It was not for these timeservers, who, seeking self-luter-st ah the time, crawled into Parii i n -nt < n the backs of a great organisation. lntil the Labor movement shook itself free of those parasites it would never succeed. He would fight them all along the line. They had an executive m their movement that was composed cf nothing but candidates for Parliament. Owing to their action he bt-d not much chance to win the seat juit h'- h- a ,4 much less now, for 'he tricks < n tins occasion would kill him. “Sydney Worker.”