WORKER AND EMPLOYER.

Taihape Daily Times, 10 November 1917, Page 6

WORKER AND EMPLOYER.

SUGAR CO.'S EXPERIENCE. Workmen employed by the Colonial Sugar Company in Melbourne and Sydney took part in the recent strike, with the result that a large proportion of those who struck work have ceased to be members of the company's provident fund. A statement oh the matter has been issued to shareholders by Mr E. W. Knox, general manager of the company. Mr, Knox states that although none of those who left the works in Sydney without notice, or who refused to resume duty in Melbourne, claimed to hove any grievance, againstj ,|the company, and all the members of the provident fund were given the opportunity to return to duty for a week after they struck, only a trifling percenage of these members availed themselves of the offer made. According to the rules of the fund, absence from work for a week without leave constituted resignation, from the com* pariy's service, so all these were deemed to have resigned, and were paid <v I of the fund, and some 370 have thus lost their interest in this institution, nearly 30 per cent, of the wageearners 'who wer[3 numbers. Those entitled to pensions by reason of their c S 2 will receive these; the others drew all the money they had paid for their

weekly subscriptions. The fund was started during the general strike of 1890. The two main principles were that the company duplicated all the subscriptions and that the salaried officers and wage-earners "became members on exactly the same footing, and had an equal share in the control. The first of. these prUmions has, year by year, involved large payments, and in the jtwenty-sixth year just ended, the contribution of the company was £99,000. "There has been a gradual change for the worse in the bearing of our employees here to the company," Mr Knox states, "and this has been noticeably aggravated by the long drawn out disputes in j the Arbitration Courts. Although we I had realised the altered attitude of the wage earners, we had not thought it possible, that after 27 years of effort on our part to make the conditions, of their employment as good as, or better than, - those in other services, they would carelessly forfeit a valuable and important interest in the business for which they worked. This interest has accrued through the £ for £ subvention by the company, and its investment in the company's shares of which the members now own between 8000 and 9000, the present market value of the holdings being £360,000. From this investment the income is £21,00K) a year, and it has, almost wholly, been acquired out of the subvention by the company, the members' subscriptions being invested on deposit. "Much is said and written nowadays about profit sharing in industries, and it is a grim commentary on the theories advanced that, in this instance, a very large section of the wage, earners concerned —some of them of the second generation—should, at the bidding of an outside body, forfeit their interest in the benefit above described." Mr. Knox adds that it is not proposed, even row, to stop' the admission of all wage-earners to the fund, but this will be restricted to those who have convinced the company that they can be trusted to show a regard for the interest of their employer. So far as the officers of the staff are concerned, it should be understood that the foregoing remarks in no way apply to them. Their loyalty to the service has always been beyond question.