THE APPRENTICES' ACT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19996, 13 January 1927, Page 10

THE APPRENTICES' ACT.

OCCUPATIONS FOR BOYS,

INQUIRIES IN WELLINGTON.

EMPLOYERS LACK INTEREST. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, January 12. In pursuance of the provisions of the Apprentices’ Act the Department of Labour asked the head teachers of the primary schools to submit reports on all boys leaving school at the end of the year, and the boys and their parents been invited by the department to indicate the kind of employment desired to be taken up, the idea being that the department should assist the boys as far as possible in obtaining employment in suitable occupations, and especially to steer them into skilled trades and to avoid their taking up blind alley occupations. Mr F. W. Rowley, Secretary of Labour, who has taken a special interest in the question of assisting boys in starting on their life’s work, stated to-day that the department had received reports from head teachers upon 730 boys leaving school at the end of the year. Of this number 335 are proceeding to secondary schools, and the remainder have specified the occupations they wish to take up. So far, however, not one employer has approached the department for boys. The department has advertised in the newspapers intimating that boys have applied, and asking employers to communicate with the department with the view 'f srnploying some of these boys. “We are also writing fo the organisations of employers in the different skilled trades,” said Mr Rowley, ‘asking them to use their best endeavours with their mem hers to have a number of boys taken on. No doubt the employers in some cases will say that they are barred from taking on boys by reason of the restriction to the number of apprentices to journeymen. The quota allowed bv the Court of Arbitration has been filled in only two namely, cabinet-making and plumbing, in respect of which wo have *4 hoy’s wishing to take up cabinet-making and wishing to take up plumbing. _ Those cannot, of course, be placed, Put In tns other occu pations there is nothing in the proper tion of apprentices provision to prevent the boys from being engaged. It might h> worth while to point out that it is not the Act itself that places restriction upon the employment pf hoys but the proportion of apprentices is fixed by the Arbitration Court under the Act. The_ court may fix the proportion at any time it thinks best. We cannot, of course, expect employers to take on all those boys whether they want them or not, although there is provision in the Act empowering the Arbitration Court to require employers in any particular industry to train their fair share of the jour neymen of the future. It may bn explained that this provision was inserted in the Act at the suggestion of several representative employers themselves, they being of the opinion that while some employers endeavour to carry out their moral obligations by training up a number of apprentices to meet the requirements of the future, there are other em ployers who make no attempt to do so There has been no instance yet where the court has taken steps to require the employment of a minimum number of apprentices. It may be of interest to note that a similar question has arisen in France, and a recent report upon an investigation of the matter there indicated that a proposal is under consideration by which a boy would be suitably trained and the cost of the training would be met by means of a levy upon the employers in the industries concerned. “The question of steering the boys into the most suitable occupations and providing skilled labour for the future in order that our industries may be adequately provided for is one that affects the general public, and it is a question that the public ought, as far as possible, to take a keen interest in, because it is a subject which, after all, vitally affects not only the boys, but also all classes of the people. The employers, on the one hand, and the workmen on the other, are not so vitally interested. As one employer has put it, the employers in any industry carry on their business with whatever labour is available, whether it is good or bad, and they make their charges and their profits according to what they have to pay, and so they carry on, simply making the best of the labour and material that is available, but it is the public which has to pay.”