TRADE UNIONS AND THE EX-SERVICE MAN. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTAT0112] Sin,—May I again refer to the fierce onslaught by the extremist bosses of the Tiede Unions on the ex-Service men, both Army and Navy ? In my recent letter, inter alia, I spoke of the action of the Bristol Docks Committee in refusing work to the ex- Service man unless he had a pre-war Union ticket, and of the sympathy of the Trade Union Secretary at Clitheroe, who could not give ex-Service men strike pay. As this matter is an intensely serious national scandal, let me briefly give two cases of refusing work to a soldier and sailor, both of whom have fought through the whole course. of the war. The one, a soldier, who applied at the Bristol Docks at Avonmouth for work, stated he had been fighting for four and a half years, and therefore was not in the Union, but would join. No. No
work, as he had not a pre-war Union ticket. The other ease, late in September, was that of a man who in applying at Avon- mouth stated he had been a stoker in the North Sea fleet all through the war—i.e., the hardest and least glorious task a man could do—and he was told there was no work for him there. He was not on their ticket. I have the names and addresses of these men, and a Councillor when told of these cases retorted : "It would never do for us to put these men on "; and yet the Chairman of the Docks Committee is at present the Lord Mayor of Bristol. Surely it is useless for either His Majesty the King or the Premier to urge employers to give employment to the soldiers and sailors who have saved our lives if Town Council Committees refuse employment in this wholesale P.S.—The railway strike was initiated and engineered on the exact lines of the German ultimatum to Serbia. No time for consideration, force on a war, and then starve your enemy. Our soldiers and sailors saved us; let us all give them first place over strikers and shirkers.
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