PIECEWORK OPPOSED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 130, 23 August 1927, Page 1

PIECEWORK OPPOSED

AMENDING ARBITRATION ACT UNION ANTAGONISTIC Piecework, which is rumoured to be among the amendments to the Arbitration Act shortly to be laid before Parliament, finds no favour with the Engineers’ Union. “Piecework,” said Mr. R. F. Barter, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and arbitration agent for the New Zealand Engineers’ Federation, “affects us more than any other workers. We are keeping an eye on happenings in Australia, where 3,000 engineers are out on strike as a protest against it.” In Sydney the introduction of piecework has precipitated a most spectacular strike with processions, banners and legal prosecutions against the weft'kers. “As far as the Engineers’ Union is concerned, we are definitely against the introduction of piecework. The union has fought against it for yeais. Much of the work in the trade is repair work, to which piecework rates are difficult to apply. At present skilled workers on stock catalogue lines as are manufactured by the machinery makers receive ljd less an hour than repair workers.” THE PIECE-WORK CLAUSE ‘ln our awards at present there; ia clause permitting piecework i.nd payment by results, providing that the rate will pay 20 per cent, more than minimum rates. “Even this system has been operated by some employers to find the absolute maximum turn-out a man can do. and having found that out, they have reverted to daily rates and expected a man to turn out the same amount.” As agent for the Engineers’ Federation, and as far as the Ironmasters’ Federation is concerned, Mr. Barter said that both bodies would be holding their own conferences in Auckland in February next, and after that the two bodies would hold a joint conference, at which one of the important questions to be discussed is to be paymf"t by results, how it will affect the workers and whether it will increase production. “I, as an individual,” concluded Mr. Barter, “have worked under piecework, and am absolutely opposed to it in any chape or form, knowing that the worker doec not get paid by the results of his , labour.”