TAILORS' COMPLAINTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16258, 8 July 1918, Page 4

TAILORS' COMPLAINTS.

PROTEST AGAINST 'TEAM

SYSTEM."

A deputation representing -bespoke tailors of New Zealand called on the Acting-Minister. of Labour - ((he Hon. W. H. Berries), at Wellington, on Friday, and complained that two clauses of the-Canterbury award could operate to the aetrimenJi of the bespoke section of the trade.. The clauses are:— "There shall be a fair distribution of work among all operatives in each workroom by the employer. Whore there are several work-rooms used by- the employer the samo shall be considered and included as the work-room for the purposes of this clause. During the slack season a turn board shall be kept by the employer and employees." - "Tho employer shall have the right to introduce whatever machinery nis business may, in his opinion, require, and to divide and subdivido labour in any way he may deem necessary, subject to the payment of wages as herein specified; provided that there shall be employed on coats not less than®one journeyman to every four journeywomen or apprentices, or a fraction of four, and in calculating the number of men actually employed on the job pressors shall be excluded from the calculation." ~ Mr F. R. Cooko (.Christchurch) said that the deputation was not asking the Government to interfere with the Arbitration Court, but to make an enquiry into the tailoring trade, so that the public would have knowledge of, the conditions. The workers had cause to be dissatisfied with the Arbitration Court s award this year. The inclusion of the two clauscs* covering the bespoke section brought this part of tho trade into tho factory system. Employers had taken advantage of the war conditions to introduce the team system. Mr W. S. Mossom (Auckland) stated that up to the year 1914 successive Presidents of the Arbitration Court had refused to agree to the employers' request to have those two clauses included. It was considered that the old piece-work svstem, on a fair log, was the best one in the tailoring trade If employers v/ero allowed to us© the tory team system for the bespoke trade many skilled men would be forced out of employment, and their places would be taken by women. Instead of the all-round tradesmen, the industry would have a specialisation scheme m which an operative's work was limited to only part of a garment. Such a scheme made a gloomy prospect for the seven hundred' tailors who had" gone -to the war.

The Minister said that it was impossible for the Government to interfere with an award of the Arbitration Court. Beforo agreeing to a request for an enquiry, he would have to hear the other side,' and he would also have to submit the case to Cabinet.