Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 222, 8 December 1927, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

BY

BOXWOOD

UNION MEETINGS DUE

.. ... ... To-night Curro-t . «- ** .. ... .. .. .. .. <v .. December 9 r «... ~ .. ~ December 10 Glassworherto .. .. ... .. _.. ... ~...... .. .. December u .Sadd era »» «• *« -• •» •• »• n ... .. .. .. December 12 .yaintei .. .. .. •• .. -- -• .. —.«.. .. ... .. ... December 12 storemen ... .. ..... ~ . . *• •* • • :»• December 13 Amalgamate'! engineer.-' .. .. .. „ „ _ , •** *• -• *• -« « *. December 13 Stonemasons .. .. .. . * •• ’ ■*• •• • • .. December 13 Cas Employees „ ••••••••• •... December 14 labour Representation Committee .. __ * •* •* • • -. December 14 C'atpenteis . .. December 14 Hotel .u ' e,s December 15 Related Printing Trades December 15

The gas workers' conciliation began yesterday. ... j. Clark. secretary ot the Plumbers' and Gastitters’ has gone to Wellington, and will be back again tomorrow. ... Stonemasons are holding their annual meeting on December 13. Mr. K. F. Barter, secretary of the amalgamated Engineers, is going to Whangarei next Wednesday on union business, and will also visit Warkworth and Dargaville. The canister workers' dispute is the subject of a conciliation council to<i*y' * * * The ferry workers’ dispute lias been before a conciliation council which remeets to-morrow, and will probably find a complete recommendation for the Arbitration Court. The Glassworks Employees’ Onion's agreement expires on December 26. A special meeting of the union has been tilled for Sunday afternoon next at the Trades Hall to discuss a new agreement. The employees. working in shifts, have no other day available for a meeting but Sunday. The Second Pick If any one should take a peep into the watersiders’ waiting room on a suitable day about noon he will probably find it crammed to the doors with men waiting for the afternoon call. Perhaps out of hundreds of men hanging about there only 50 will be engaged, and the others will have wasted their day. According: to the cablegrams on the Australian waterside trouble a considerable point in the argument is this Second pick which hi not unknown as a source of dissatisfaction on this side of the Tasman. Why tne second pick at all. asks the union? Shipping agents have radio information as to the hour of arrival of most ships. . Why then not call the labour needed in the morning and let the men go about their business for the day? A Joint Award After a considerable amount of manoeuvring and cross-purposes the chemical and manure workers of the three unions have agreed to be joint parties to the award on the terms reached in conciliation a few days ago. The original Auckland Union has not played a very large part for some time. The Otahuhu Union has always regretted the triple division of the workers, and has, it is believed, made ■ iverbures for a coalition before. A joint award may have the very desirable effect of bringing the sections to see that one union has a better bargaining power than three in one industry and perhaps it is not too much to iiope that the different organisations will: merge. Forestalled Just when the Theatre Employees’ Federation was on the verge of proceedings for a Dominion award the employers sprang a. surprise by filing a local dispute with the “Front of the House” employees in Dunedin. The proceeding is fairly obvious in its intention. If the owners get busy in Dunedin, the weakest centre in the Dominion, and procure an award as favourable to themselves as possible, they would, then repeat the performance 'in the Northern centres using their Dunedin award as a club with which to confront the other workers. And they would probably have the 'Upport of the Arbitration Court in that, for the court’s principle is to make a new award the base of similar awards through the country. Australian Timber Workers Ttmbcrworkers in Melbourne have h«en proceeding for an all-round week °* hours. The owners and the Full Arbitration Court have both taken their *tand on the financial position of the ndustry and the court has put the instigation of th® balance sheets of firms in the hands of an expert. °r the employers it has been pointed 1 that in the case of one of the big--cst West Australian mills at no time there been more than 49 per cent. *'t sawn timber obtained from the logs to the mill. That was in In 1925 the percentage was only ’■> and in 1926 it had risen to 43. This course is largely accounted for by lh ® small logs which the timber provides.

The judge pointed out that accordlnS to those figures the mills had had a better return when, under a 44-hour *<*k_timn when on a 48-liour week. ha *- according to the millowners’ rePrescntative, was because in 1922 the mills picked their timber.

To the T.U.C. work may be done by your •nions than ever before if you rememthat the way to success lies not ■j 0 much by violent agitation as it Th* 8 !? 7 w ‘ nn *ng general respect,” said • * , ev - p T. R. Kirk, general direcor the Industrial Christian Fellowi IP ’ a trades union congress dis>mse reported in the Manchester guardian.” a the workers of England intro’s the world a democracy which ;* '-hristian. not only in its antagony?to &reed and in its vision of a befit r social age, but also in the methods of Ploys to rid our common life -~rh e ftne unt * to establish the other ~n U n there is nothing of advancement tllat out of their reach. it all men. even minorfree persons; must not thwart ‘ ; being of those not concerned “ is P u t©s; and must allow nothjJte*o hand us into classes that will with - s re S ar d men in other classes .. » thinly veiled hate. Whatever we ‘lav sh all not win through to the f e n.Jfhen all are free, happy, and in by such means. fort? only Sain that end by standing liberty of the individual, in* anh^n^er ed happiness of every bethe deep fellowship of all si>errw ty ‘ So the principles that *> e hindrances are the most

Ratio and Training: we *'b a movement was initiated 'ion t v niona to Set every organismArhi, brin S an application before the the r ratlo “ Court for a reduction ot nroiJff., y (luota of apprentices to the of tlie district quota which nf tk. ebri,ary will be no more. Several xn-u 5 ur *ions were going forward with tv,. “PPhcations before that decision '■out* p ' u 't‘f‘d. The proceedings in the not be of long duration. The " o °ks as they stand show * ou s lists of unemployed and not

I a few records of transfers, a great !traha er ® f which have been for Aus--1 , ' An impressive bulk of eviI atone ?,?“*'/ be drawn from these lists Ughfen b ,m h ° W " ly the court should l |P on apprenticing. ' - at has the supervision of come to When a magisli abe , glv ® s a decision that an apprenhfx tn/. Um , blns is not Prejudiced in hib trade education if he be put on sh nC .!nd n f f ° r three morit hs out of sii mlAp '‘. ot at any period of the six months been working with a plumbing tradesman? In other words months experience in plumbing had taught him three months of concreting and no plumbing and had cost *h® , lad one-tenth of the experience which goes to the term of his apprenticeship. Or to put it another way, if a > outh were to ask for one day's holi“f y . ln eve ,ry working day of his time wnat would the employer have had “ say to that. It is hard enough to S' l the youths a half day a week for the Technical School. Some of the abuses that are put upon learners of trades are just too amusing for words. For instance there ts the—well, say baker’s apprentices—who were found to be working on motor mechanics' work recently. And other cases could be quoted. This laxity has gone too far, and it is about time that the courts tightened up both on the point of numbers and training. Organising Female Labour Women have been accepted into the industrial system now, and in the course of years some of them have organised for the improvement of conditions. But they are notoriously hard to get together and probably the time is coming when ♦they will get more and more difficult to rope in. For industrialists, adopting the tactics of bad models in America, are putting obstacles in the path whenever possible by concessions and welfare anaesthetics. It is obviously easier to go half-way with “concessions” than to be forced the whole distance by the organisation of employees. Women deluded by the false baits which have been and are being offered are grasping a shadow when the substantial advantages of unionism are at hand for them to take. One could point to various industries in which female labour is suffering from sheer lack of strong organisation. On the other hand one can point to the strong position, and the favourable conditions of the Tailoresses’ Union as an example of the benefits of unionism. Why, for instance—though this is not solely in mind—why not organise the women employees in city offices? One could almost get the 15 required for a nucleus to proceed with from among the Trades Union secretaries’ typists. That would be a start, and a start is something toward accomplishment. Life and Leisure It is to be hoped that pupils of the Seddon Technical College really took to heart the words of Archbishop Averill at the prize-giving ceremony on Tuesday evening. Said his Grace, wisely: “Life is something more than merely earning a living.” In a recent English periodical another sensible address is reported which is on the same theme:— “For most of those engaged in industry to-day their daily job cannot be the main thing. The main thing is the use of leisure,” said Mrs. Barbara Wootton, Director of Studies, University of London, in a speech at a recent conference of the Industrial Welfare Society. “Increasingly we have to find our life’s interest in the things outside our work, which is something we have to get done and get out of as quickly as possible. “We have to decide whether we are going to run civilisation on the theory that our main interest is the thing by which we earn our daily bread, or whether the thing by which we earn our daily bread does not bear with it the curse of Adam. I am inclined to the side which takes the, latter view. “Mankind has discovered all sorts of new ways of doing his work easier. But he is so frightened at the thought of leisure that he goes on working as long as he can, and makes work the main thing in life.”