The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MOONING. MONDAY, MAY 4, J9OB. TRAINING SKILLED LABOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2181, 4 May 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MOONING. MONDAY, MAY 4, J9OB. TRAINING SKILLED LABOR.

One of tire economic mistakes that unionism never seems to outgrow is revealed .by the eager desire to limit tho supply of skilled labor, tlie impression evidently being -that there will bo more to divido if there are less individuals to divide 'it among. This fallacy, none tho less fatal, because it is so easy to fall into it, crops up again and again and is a marked feature of Labor agitation at the present timo. There are several ways in which unions attempt to limit the supply of skilled labor. One is to limit the number of boys and apprentices; another is to limit the hours of work. This factor, which is just as troublcsomo in Australia as it is here, was recently dealt with editorially by tho Sydney “Morning dtoru'ld” which treats thoughtfully and ably an exceedingly difficult subject. Our contemporary puts the ease'thus: —(What unionism fails to see is that all proposals which greatly interfere with the employment- of apprentices restrict output, diminish employment, and decrease what economists used to call tho wages fund. Of course, a mean lias to bo struck between the industrial efficiency implied by keeping machinery always going, and the right of the worker to be regarded as something more than a machine. But a very fair solution of that dilemma has already been found, and further attempts to limit available labor must at once operate and would operate disastrously if we came into open competition with outside (production. AH ideas as ito limiting labor, in fact, conceal the fallacy of those first -unionists who imagined they were bettering themselves by breaking up machinery. The question of how to train labor efficiently is one, however, with which unionism may very well concern itself. The trouble at present does not arise from an overplus of skilled -labor. Indeed, we often bear that skilled labor in certain trades cannot be obtained. It arises from an overplus of ha If-skilled, inferior labor, for which the unions demand union rates of pay. And this inefficiency is due directly to the absence of any thorough-going effort to have 'boys taught their trade. AYe cannot put this state of things down to the selfishness of employers who make all the- use they can of cheaii boy .labor, and then turn it adrift. The unions themselves are largely to blame, for even where the apprenticeship plan nominally holds ill a trade, how many unionists do their part and actively help an apiirentice to learn his trade, even whore the number of those -agreed on per man is not infringed? It is useless to throw the onus on the employer, -and to ask for further legislative interference while unions theinselvs neglect their part. As it is, .the victim is the boy. 'He is caught between the upper millstone of the employer, who wants to get tho maximum amount of work out of him, and the lower millstone of the unionists, who, true to their insane principle of limiting labor, mean him to learn as little .as they can help. How much worse then is the state of the boy who is not even nominally an apprentice? Something might he done by legislation to meet the case, hut not much. It is a case that calls strongly for co-operation between unionism and the employer, and unless that is honestly forthcoming little good can result from .interference. And the problem is one that every day -strikes deeper .at the roots of industrial efficiency. It is sometimes said that the technical schools take the place of the old apprenticeship system. They do not. They do not even in theory, for their object ought to be to teach principles rather than craftsmanship, to awaken the intelligence, rather than to provide rules of -thumb and -practice in industrial processes. Tlieso mro things that only the workshop can supply. And they do not actually, for. tho simple reason that they reach only a. small percentage of the industrial recruits, and are too limited in number, and too -starved in income, to do anything more. They are good within their opportunities. "We do not. mean to disparage them. But their (opportunities are too small. And-therefore a satisfactory apprenticeship system is essential. But this is not a matter of law; it is a matter of atmosphere. The best lesson an apprentice can -learn is to work for Hie work’s. - sake. Anti wlint union will teach him that?