World of Work.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 16, 23 June 1911, Page 10

World of Work.

Notes os. Labor at Home aivd Abroad*

Collated by BLOCHAIRN

So far as wealth production is concerned, the Avage-bcast is a distinct success. So far as the retaining or the enjoyment of the product his is, comparatively, tho most complete failure the world has seen.

The world of labor is undergoing a rapid change from the extreme submissi yen ess that characterised it a fewmonths ago. Wherever we look, whether to Australia or America, Britain or the Continent of Europe, the situation is acute. Revolt is in tho air. Strikes and threats of strikes are increasing in number. In Britain trouble in the engineering trade has been avoided by the employers granting 50 per cent, of tho men's demands. The strike of seamen is spreading. Every section of the workingclass is fighting for improved conditions, according to its lights. One big union would give this fight more force and greater prospects of victory than is possible Avhile the battle is carried on in sectional engagements, as at present.

There are 65. mills operating in the Lancashire cotton trade which during the past few years have been making enormous profits. The surplus in 1907, after paying loan interest of £1,000,000 Avorked out at a dividend of 24.57 on share and loan capital, or more than double the profits of the previous year. Readers Avill remember that in the face of these gigantic profits the mill oAvners demanded a Avage reduction in the middle of Avinter—and got it, too!

Noav is the accepted time, now is the day to push the circulation of The Maorixaist> Worker, and spread the industrial union propaganda. Keep in the firing line.

The carpenter, with his j)rimitive art, is still Avith us, but he is not the handicraftsman lie was. There are poAver saws and planing machines for boards of eA*ery kind. The "four-cut-ter machine" (not yet introduced into New Zealand, but soon to be, you may rest assured) Avorks all four faces simultaneously. Machines fashion all kinds of mouldings, cut dovetails, mortises and tenons, while the engine known as tho "universal joiner" is a combination machine with superhuman poAvers. Tho "copying lathe" produces objects of regular or irregular shape automatically from a pattern, and can turn out AA-ith equal ease a gunstock or a broo handle, a boot last or a toy horse. The sand-papering machine is almost uncanny in its imitation of human movements, Avhile the self-directing lathe represents the callous absorption of whole centuries of manual skill. Thus as education brings the unskilled laborer up nearer the skilled, invention is bringing the skilled craftsman down to the position of a mere machine-minder.

The British North-eastern Railway Company has issued an order to the railway policemen in its employment to withdraw from membership of the A.S.R.S. At an interview between the manager and delegates of the Union the former said the company was quite unable to recede from the position it had taken up, and that membership of the Amalgamated Society by the police could not be allowed to continue. This decision is likely to lead to reprisals by the A.S.R.S.

It was bound to come. At last a body of clergy have gone on strike! In a district in Servia the priests have refused to preach or fulfil their other duties because their living conditions have not been improved.

The spirit of industrial unionism is growing in South Australia. A driver who refused to handle a coil of rope that came from a Croydon factory, where a strike was in progress, was dismissed by his employers, but prompt action by the Drivers' Union secured his re-engagement. The employers had made preparations for a long fight with the men by getting big stocks of manufactured goods carted to certain warehouses, their intention being to fill orders from these while their factory -was picketed. However, they had neglected to take the Drivers' Union into their calculations, and as the drivers decline to handle the stuff the scheme has fallen through. An attempt was made to get the drivers to cart "kerosene," but when the pickets pointed out that the tins had been removed and the cases filled with nails, that "kerosene" -vpnt back to the stores at double quick time.

A pure and simple "Trade Unionist" asks: "If you take away the capitalist what incentive will the worker have to work?" He might as well ask: "If you take away the potato bug what incentive will the potato have to grow?" It is another illustration that truth is

stranger than fiction. Many workers Avho receive but 30 per cent, of tho Avealth they produce believe they would, lose their incentive were they to receive the full 100 per cent. As a matter of fact what they would lose would not be the incentive, but the necessity to work so hard. Surely such loss wero welcome?

The name of Daicy Mnnk, an employee of a Sacramento cracKer factory, will go down in the industrial history of California as that of the one woman who, though conscious that her action would cost her her job, appeared before tho Labor Bills Committee, when the Eight Hours Bill was before it, and told of the long hours of intense application—the heavy strain on mind and body—of all women factory workers. She described how she stood from morning till night at the bottom of a chute clown which crackers swirled in a steady stream ; hoAV she kept the crackers going steadily into the boxes, and how, had her fingers fumbled an instant, her job would pay for tho resultant pile of broken crackers.