INDUSTRIAL LABOUR

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 6, 2 October 1943, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL LABOUR

More Appeals Being Allowed MAINTAINING OUTPUT Dominion Special Service,

AUCKLAND, October 7.

Evidence of the increasing difficulty of releasing more men for the services while maintaining a high output in essential industries has been provided over recent mouths at sittings of Auckland armed forces appeal boards. On account of the large numbers of skilled employees in all trades who have left the country on active service, unskilled workers in almost every industry have attained key positions which they would not normally have held.

Dismissals of appeals against military service arc now far outnumbered by sine die adjournments. Though each application is judged on its merits, the-tri-bunals require little time, after consideration of reports by manpower utilization committees or of evidence of indispensability submitted by employers, before granting au adjournment of service. With the improved war outlook, medical grading below category A is more frequently allowed as a reason for the postponement of entry into eamp. whße sympathetic consideration is given to cases of family hardship. Decisions at a sitting of the No. 1 Appeal Board yesterday provided proof of the difficulties under which employer and employee are working. Of 16 appeals for the retention in industry of engineers, farmers, seamen, printers, clerks and teachers, 14 were adjourned sine die after evidence had been brought to show the extent to which the country's war effort would suffer by the loss of the workers to their respective spheres of employment. Eight out of nine requests for the release of servicemen and women from the three branches of the armed forces gained the support of the. board. Among these was an unusual request by a soldier to be allowed to resume his former employment as a mental hospital assistant at the Kingseat Mental Hospital.