BOYS IN TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 20081, 19 January 1927, Page 6

BOYS IN TRADE

AVOIDING THE ‘“DEAD END” JOB.

MASTER PLUMBERS’ VIEWS.

Parents with boys just leaving school need but little reminder of the existence of the uneconomic and disheartening “dead-end” job, the work that leads nowhere in the end, however attractive at the outset wages may be. The temptation to put a boy into any job that offers good w'ages at once is not hard to understand, considering the appetite of growing youths and their wear and tear on boots and clothes. The desire to make a boy a something—tradesman or professional man —is fairly general; but the difficulty seems to be to find suitable openings. As for trades, the Labour Department is most anxious to find places for boys eligible to learn them.

In a statement made by a well-known New Zealand master plumber to the Evening Post, it was learned that, in his opinion, the law is operating most adversely in the interests of boys seeking to learn trades, his own trade in particular. “Speaking after more than forty years’ experience,” said this employer, “and looking back for men who served their time during my period, I find that not more than 10 per cent, remained in the business, owing to restrictions by the unlimited number of laws and the supervision by the various Government Departments, which of late have sprung up like mushrooms—not saying anything about the Labour Department inspectors, who come and inspect the wage-book as to the number of men, apprentices, or youths, who may or may not be interpreted in their language as plumbers, and as to what they do, where, how, why, and when they do it. And yet more labour inspectors are asked for!

“I believe we have more supervisors, inspectors, and subordinate officers and attendants than we have registered plumbers. In fact, it seems to me that we are not masters of our own businesses, although registered, but are dependent upon the wishes of those who have risen to a degree, with a power and authority given them by laws and peculiar regulations.

‘The authorities are unable to force registration, under a system of compulsory technical education, as boys will not stop at the trade if this compulsion is put upon them; and it is questionable whether the amount spent on the system warrants the expense.

“What chance has a master got of finding a boy out in the first three months of his apprenticeship, for after that time he knows he is your master? If he does not, the men will soon inform him. The whole system is wrong. Some may say I am prejudiced, and all sorts of things, but I am merely a man who wants to leave this world a little better than I found it.

LET THE BOY DECIDE

“We seem to be drifting from bad to worse. My contention is that a boy should be given a chance in his own choice of trade, thereby teaching him early, first to judge for himself. If this fine of action were adopted he would be educating himself up to the course he was likely to take after leaving school. Surely a boy with a proficiency certificate is able to tell us what he would like himself without first going before a tribune—three masters, three men, and a Government employee as chairman—to tell the boy what he shall go to.

“Can anyone see how success is going to come of this? A firm is wanting a boy. Of course the tribune has first the power to tell us that you may or may not be entitled to employ an apprentice, and then to send you along a boy whom perhaps you do not want. But you must have him, or none at all, because he is the boy on the waiting list. This is the muddle we have got into. Why does the Government not act, if it is reform it stands for, instead of a proposed supervising apprentice committee? As the law stands at present it is questionable whether an employer can employ his own son. This is the fact in my own case.

“All boys should have a chance at trades. Should he leave, or not continue in his first choice, he is a better citizen, having acquired some knowledge to help him adapt himself to something else to advantage. QUALITY OF WORKMEN.

“Above all. the firm should be the first judge of its staff, and have the right to employ it. But under these and further suggested laws, we are apprenticing a staff of inefficients which the State will have to find work for, thus bringing about Government Departments of Labour to manage. “What are we going to do with all the boys that left school last year? Are they all going to be accountants, clerks—or unemployed? There is no room for them in the various branches of the building trade; the engineers are full, and all have a waiting list. This Apprentice Act and regulations must have a bad effect upon the community as time advances. I am speaking from the experience of others; but it is also a subject upon which few, if any, care to write about for reasons sufficiently obvious to employers. But is pursuit of this heartless task of arousing public opinion on the apprenticeship question worth while? Yes; for this is a vital subject. It should be taken up by the best of men for the best of men.

PLUMBERS WANTED.

“My trade wants plumbers, and we cannot get them; and the union, Labour Department, and Government won’t let us make them. The number of advertisements for plumbers that have appeared in the Evening Post during the last twelve months would give the public a staggerer, to nothing about numerous inquiries otherwise and in other parts owing to employers being unable to get them there. “Advertisements for plumbers are the barometer of the trade, because plumbers, if they are any good, are never out of work. I know of no plumber who has wanted to work, to be out of work. Of course, there are a few who are bosses to-day and journeymen to-morrow. It is said that there are 300 to 400 master plumbers in Wellington to-day! I cannot verify this. I have had plumbers, and had to put up with them because I could not get others, who would not work on Saturday, and when asked to come and help to get things going have laughed and said they could earn more in a billiard saloon. It is becoming unbearable, but you have to put up with “it,’*