EMPLOYERS’ PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 96, 17 January 1935, Page 8

EMPLOYERS’ PROBLEMS

Price-cutting; Unrestricted Competition EMPLOYEES AFFECTED Dominion Special Service. . Auckland, January 16. . “Old conditions have passed never to return again, possibly fortunately, as they led to an era of inflation and extravagance from which we are now suffering,” states Mr. J. S. Dawes, president of the Auckland Provincial Employers’ Association, in a circular to members of the association. “A problem closely affecting us is whether it is possible to do anything to check the evil of price-cutting. Unrestricted competition and a strenuous struggle to get sufficient work to keep going are having a very bad effect, and are paralysing the efforts of those employers who wish to pay good wages for good service. Particularly destructive is the competition of the small contractor or operative who, with little or no capital invested, practically no overhead expenses, and employing little or no labour, can undercut the employer bound by awards and restrictions safeguarding the employee. Whether a.i eventual solution of this difficulty will be found in some voluntary organisation of industry or in codes as provided under President Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act is a question worth considering.”