Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 464, 20 September 1928, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

f By

"ARBITER”

UNION MEETING DATES September 20 (to-night) Alliance of Labour « rp » em^ er (to-night) Plumbers’ Educational | frpterr >her 20 (to-night) Women’s Branch Labour Party y i S ? ü bcr 20 (to-night) Gas Employees’ Provident Fund Monday, September 24 Painters Monday, September 24 Bricklayers S tJ“ tf! . mhe v r 24 „_* and T. Association Tuesday, September 25 Stonemasons

In tho year before the war there were 932 boys and 1,241 girls (under 16) in New Zealand factories. In 1920-21 there were 1,267 boys and 1,368 girls, and last year there were 1,030 boys and 1,614 girls. It is anticipated by the Labour Department that, as a result of the absence at the war of large numbers of the younger and middle-aged men, the number of boys and girls leaving school and available for employment will considerably diminish in the years 1930-33. Auckland is still accommodating many hundreds of unemployed men—both its own and those from other districts. Many of them are sent away from town for a few days’ work, but as soon as they are finished, they perforce have to return to the city where their headquarters belong. When advised that things are hopeless economically in tho city, they make the apt reply that things are worse in the country. The Trades Hall receives its visitors with the same discouraging reply for the inquiry for work: “Nothing doing.” If only every local body and district would do its part in alleviating unemployment. It is revealed by the report of the Labour Department that in the tbwn of New Plymouth a Citizens’ Unemployment Committee was formed, and a voluntary weekly levy was made on the wages of workers in numbers of establishments. As a result the committee was, at the end of March last, employing 72 men on road-construction work in the borough. *• * * Conference Postponed Tho conference on apprenticeship questions, which was to have been held at Wellington on Tuesday next, September 25, has been postponed till next year. The reason given by the Labour Department is that, as the whole Apprenticeship Act has to be reviewed, it is desirable that representatives of employers’ and workers’ organisations should attend. This is all very well after the endless trouble which has been occasioned in the drafting of a long agenda, and after many meetings for the choice of delegates and discussion of the general question. Employers are represented now by their own men on the apprenticeship committees. It looks now as if they require representation by their own associations. It looks moreover as if someone has the wind up. The conference, it will be remembered, was postponed from last year. “Reds” Want Money Communists who cloak their activities in the Miners* Union by their “save-the-union” movement, have called a conference in Pittsburg this month. The announced purpose is to form a new Miners’ Union. At the Senate coal strike probe it was shown that Communists and coal owners in more than one instance worked for a common objective—destruction of the Miners’ Union. —This is the allegation of an American journal. Small Factories Increase Small factories are increasing in New Zealand. It has been urged that to enable New Zealand manufacturers to compete with those abroad, and also to obtain maximum efficiency generally, the number of small factories should diminish and the larger works increase. Figures do not show any such development, but rather an increase in the proportion of small establishments. The average number of factory workers per registered factory In 1913-14 (before the war) was about 6and, while in 1920-21 the average was seven, it has, on the whole, since decreased to the present average of six. The trade depression and unemployment have tended to accentuate the position, many workers who had lost their employment in factories having themselves commenced business; in a small way * * * Ever Heard This? This is about the best yet: A timber worker in one of the country districts writes to the secretary of the union at Auckland, Mr. E. J. Phelan, notifying receipt of the following missive from the mill manager: % “With the object of giving a fair deal all round, and in the interests of all employees, it has been decided that the conditions of your remaining in the company’s employment will be: “ (1) You will be required to board at the cookhouse which the company lias provided to meet the requirements of certain employees, of whom you are one. “(2) As an alternative you may obtain meals elsewhere provided they are not prepared or taken into the company’s whares, on condition that you have deducted from your wages the sum of 5s weekly by way of rent for tho whare whether you occupy it or not.

“If you fail to comply with either of the above conditions by September 17, you will have to be prepared to make wav for a man who will.” What do the workers think of that; The writer of the letter thinks this: ‘ It seems to me that the mantle of the Tsar has fallen on tho shoulders of the boss in this ’ocality . . . And yet we are asked to keep on singing that good old song, ‘Britons Never Shall be Slaves’.” * * * Power Displaces Hand Substitution ol mechanical power for hand labour is the greatest factor in the increased productivity of American industry, according to the United States Geological Survey. A study shows that from 1849 to 1923 tho horsepower per wage-earner increased from 1.44 to 5.31, and from 1909 to 1923 from 2.96 to 5.31. The least use of mechanical power was found in agriculture. * • * Are We Better Off? An official report of the Labour Department says: “A comparison of unemployment in New Zealand with other countries goes to show that it is much greater elsewhere than in this Dominion. For example, from recent information obtained it is stated that in Great Britain on March 1, 1328, there were 1,136,700, or 1 in 38 of the population. The number of unemployed there has since increased. A Government committee reporting in 1925 on the British unemployment insurance scheme has estimated that the scheme should anticipate an average of 700,000 unemployed persons (equivalent to about 1 in 60 of the total population). United States estimates vary from two million to eight million, but the most reliable suggest four million, or 1 in 28 of tlie population, at the end of 1927. In Australia the estimates from the several States vary, but they appear to indicate that about 32,000, or 1 in 190, were unemployed in March last (Queensland alone, however, shows 14,000, or 1 in 63, in that month). In New Zealand, the department’s applicants at April 1 showed 2,500, equivalent to 1 in 575 of the population.” * * * Facing the Facts “Arbiter” has preached organisation and, as far as possible, co-ope,ration, ever sinc-e the commencement of these notes. The value of these two ingredients of industrial progress is shown by a report from England of the plight of tho railwaymen there. It was pointed out recently that this was one of the most difficult and trying periods the trade union movement had ever been faced with, and it was a regrettable fact that the N.U.R., which had maintained a basic wage 100 per cent, above the pre-war figure, had suffered a drop of 75,000 members from its ranks. Mr. J. H. Thomas, M.P., warned the men of the position, which, he said, was worse than ever it had been. Viewed from the standpoint not of road competition, heavy and serious as it was, but from the adverse position of the blast-furnaces, the South Wales coal trade, the Clyde shipbuilding, and trade in Lancashire cotton, he was apprehensive as to the position of the railways, so apprehensive that not only did he subscribe to the policy of cooperation, but held it was essential in their interests as workers to do all they could to make the railway service the most efficient in the country. The railways were in a far more serious position than was generally known. He Was not going to let them down, but he was gning to face the facts, unpleasant and difficult as they were. * * * Boost for Co-operation During a co-operative week at Home it was revealed by an English paper that an inquiry into the weight and price of bread in Cologne in 1926 showed that the real price of the loaf was 12.19 per cent, higher in the case of the private trade bakers than in the qase of the co-operative society. To boost co-operation it was stated that the report on agriculture submitted to the World Economic Conference at Geneva (May, 1927) declared that “co-operative institutions further economic progress by increasing productivity and improving quality. They assist the organisation of markets by methods which reduce to a minimum the costs of distribution.” Further than that, the paper quotes the report to the International Labour Conference at Geneva in May of this year of what the director of the International Labour Office said of co-oper-ative societies:

“Being in close touch with the interests of the workers . . . co-operative societies, have shown, by their attitude toward labour problems and by their achievements which have so often anticipated legislation, that their members and the workers they employ are associated in a common desire for improvement and progress.”