Requests were made to the Labour Department by the committee to introduce the dismissed men to fresh employment or provide unemployment relief. Although a number of vacancies were notified to the men through the committee, it was later discovered that some men had rejected the jobs. The committee also demanded that each worker should receive a personal introduction to work. As this could not be accepted and there was no means of providing unemployment relief, the Labour Department was forced to advise the committee that the department could do no more.
The activities of this union and its committee are typical of much of the present trade union activity in the Colony.
In the first place the union left all negotiations to an unofficial committee which had no standing and also no experience in negotiations. Negotiations were carried on to an accompaniment of violent attacks on the management in certain sections of the vernacular press. The appeal to the Labour Department for mediation was left until relations had become so strained that it was virtually impossible to procure a settlement.
The unions have also encouraged a distorted version of what constitutes a legal termination of service. Strangely enough, although both workers and unions appear prepared to accept summary dismissal for cause, they endeavour to maintain the position that no employer may terminate a contract of service by giving due notice or paying wages in lieu thereof unless at the same time he furnishes explanations which are accepted as satisfactory by the workers. They also consider that, failing such explanations, it is the duty of the Labour Department to order the employer not to terminate a contract. The Labour Department has been at pains to correct these misapprehensions but without success. What the unions will not recognize is that this is a matter of employer-worker relations and as such it is one in which the union must accept the responsibility of doing its best for its members within the law. If a healthy employer-union relationship can be established, it will go far towards eliminating any tendency on the part of employers towards an arbitrary or discriminatory exercise of their legal rights.
The demand for some form of unemployment relief is natural and deserving of sympathy, but the workers have no conception of the enormous difficulties inherent in the circumstances of the Colony with its vast refugee population which stand in the way of setting up any form of unemployment insurance on a contributory basis. In fact, they do not envisage any form of contributory insurance, but expect the Government to provide food or money for all who may be unemployed. The most that it has been possible to offer up to date is assistance to enable unemployed persons to return to their native villages, but this has not proved acceptable.
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