BUILDINGS, BUILDER, ETC.

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 8, 20 April 1911, Page 17

BUILDINGS, BUILDER, ETC.

Dear "Worker," —During the last feAv months the citizens of Wellington have been treated to a discussion on the building trade, and as is usual the most important aspect has been overlooked. What sane man ever expects to get the best Avork under a system Avhich is entirely opposed to good work, or good workmanship. The facts are just as ugly as they can be, and some day Aye Avdf get an aAvakening by buildings, haA'ing very little solidity about them, toppling over and causing an enormous loss of human life. Mr Hmdmarsh at a recent meeting of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board called attention to the falling plaster at the Nurses' Home, but how many buildings in recent years have been constructed and before they had been out of the builders' hands repairs to some wretched shoddy material used has been necessary. Hundreds of men in the trade are prematurely old, more especially is this the case with that branch the worse paid, yet the most degraded on all buildings. I refer to the labourer. You may knoAV them by their pinched faces, muddy clothing, dirty .boots. The "pannikin" boss usuallA r is in evidence. This is the man avlio for a wretched shilling a day more than his felloAV Unionists sells his body to a mercenary employer to rush, wear, and sAveat others. The concrete board is the field of battle, and it is a common occurrence to see on any building in Wellington shingle and cement half mixed (turned once) with boulders and old bricks thrown in for foundations. Bricklaying is a lost art, for very seldom do we see brickwork properly grouted and joints tested, and outside joined work is only veneer. It might be as well for the powers that ,be to keep an eye on what is going on in a public institution now being erected not a hundred miles from the grounds of Wellington hospital. Here unionism is powerless, for leading hands get

up to £4 a week to pace others no matter how tradesmen may desire to do a good job. Carpentering as a profession is a thing of the past and is about as rotten as most of the "sap" timber used. It is Well-known speculative timber merchants use this timber to put up those wretched jerry built shacks called houses. These so-called workmen's homes are kept together by a liberal use of paper and paste, and sold to some deluded workers on the £20 deposit plan the balance in rent, and before they are paid for the house is unfit for human habitation. It Avould surprise you the number of men taking work, working all hours, ■fvdio are not making £2 5s per week. This is done to avoid payment to the. Union and to have the title of contractors added to their names. Such contracting means, others following in their train easing doors, sashes and general alterations. Painting is equally as bad. Kerosene taking the place of oil and the work scamped by an irritating pannikin boss. Someone asks, "What about clerk of works, Council inspectors, etc. Do these things occur tinder their eyes?" Yes! If you could stipulate that no contractor or clerk of Avorks should be seen drinking over a. public bar together, or that architects should cease taking commissions, fraud and humbug might be mitigated, but it is the system that is at fault. The best work, the cheapest work in the long run, is day Avork, not contract. As a rule men if not driven will do a fair thing. Those whose ambition is to fall under the spell of doing more work than another man -will either have to be educated or die out. Competition must go. Craft unions, as constituted, only prolong the agony and have no remedy tor SAveating and pace-making, for while abiding by an aAvard rate and paying one or two men more than award rate an employer gets out of the men twice the amount of work—invariably scamped—which is a disgrace and a crime against the community. Socialism in this as in all other spheres is our Only Hope.—l am, etc., "CHIPS."