DISTRESSED BOILERMAKERS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 956, 25 October 1910, Page 5

DISTRESSED BOILERMAKERS.

SOUP KITCHENS OPENED. By TeleEraph—Press Association—Copyright. i London, October 23., ; Hundreds of families at Blyth are suffering from the lock-out in the ship-build-ing trade. ' .•: • Two workmen's clubs are running a soup kitchen. ; The Education Committee .is giving free meals and distributing boots arid clothing. The bottom of the boilermaker 'trouble, says,a "Daily Mail", writer," is. piecework.. It is quite easy for a skilful mana-. ger so to handle piece-work,as practically to reduce wages without ostensibly doing so—at.least.so I am assured. The contention of the revolters is, that, as a matter of fact, wages have been docked in just that way, and that it is not true to say that the dispute is not about wages. Under the agreement of which one hears .50, much,' the men undertook in the case of, any changes of work to go on working until tho matters in dispute had'been settled by authority—to go on'working on tho same terms. : Now their complaint.is> that authority /takes'. so long about it} tb.ero\are so many conferences, etc., etc., etc., that tho' job is finished before the settlement is arrived at. It »is not' a case of "wait and see"; it is a case of waiting' and never seeing. So they get impatient,: and impatience is a vice, but it is a curiously human vice.: The case, of tho boilermakers anyhow is not entirely'a case of men at loggerheads with other men. There are several screws loose in the machinery-of that agreement you hear somuch about, and until those screws aro readjusted there will be more, and -more father.. '," . ...' s .'.