THE SKILLEDWORKER MYTH

Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1928, Page 2

THE SKILLEDWORKER MYTH

A feature of the latest waterside workers’ strike has beep the immediate efficiency of volunteer labour from town and country in what is popularly supposed to be a skilled occupation. In Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Newastle ships have bcei loaded by volunteer labour in record time. Shipowners forced to the extremity of employing this “unskilled ’ labour are claiming that the efficiency rate is from 50 to 75 per cent higher than that of the professional wharf labourer. The experience is nov now. The waterside strike of 1917. for example, served to show that the amateur wharf-labourer who was keen on learning a new job was generally more capable than the professional, who had grown into the habit of regarding his as a privileged meal ticket.

It is no surprise, therefore, to find strike after strike collapsing for the same reason —the discovery that the man in the street is able to efficiently do things that industrial superstition had supposed -to be the prerogative of the individual who has spent most of his lifetime in doing nothing else. The old idol should have been sufficiently battered by the war, which showed that all sorts and conditions of men and women could, with v minimum of intensive training, carryout work hitherto demanded only of the most highly skilled and trained artificers. The great post-war attempt at a strike revolution in England served to bring the same truth home. There is no form of labour of hand or brain which cannot be supplied from the rank and file of a • virile nations’ population if that rank and file be properly directed and have the will and the oourage to suceed.— Sydney Paper.