OUTPUT RESTRICTION AND PIECEWORK.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 August 1919, Page 7

OUTPUT RESTRICTION AND PIECEWORK.

After describing the strike -as a boomerang remedy, only to be adopted in the last resort, Mr Justice .HiggillS‘ dealt with the restriction -of Output.’ saying that he had not found much indication of it in Australia. He tho.-d been furnished with statistics which showe'd that it now took a longer "time per ‘ton to discharge ships than it used to take. The longer time, however, was ‘due to the greater lengths of ships, the greater size of_ the holds, and the greater distance the goods had :to be carried. Such‘ restrictions of output as existed were confined .to piece—work or to an" endeavour to get more men employed for certain operations. Some theorists thought it was the universe‘; salve for labo=ur troubles. He was recently able to find the reason of the bitter hostility [of the engineers to pieee—work. They deela-red that when they produced abundantly, the rates of piece-work tended to fall. An exceptional output fesiilting in exceptional wages, was treated by ‘the management "as proof 'tlt'a:t },'the wages lwere ‘too high. Piece-work might be desirable for employees Whvse opcra)tion,s linvolved doing the same thing -over and over again; but it was cflTél to men who had to apply their minds to operations of a rriifeh varying character. In conclusion, (His Honour pointed t-0 certain necessary amends in the law to enable settlements of disputes to be more easily made, but added significantly that, in spite of his own repeated representations on the subject, Parliament had not seen fit to amend -the Act, .

At :the same time that Mr Justice Higgins was dealing with industrial problems, Mr E. C. Dyason, chairman. of the Chamber of Mines in ‘Melbourne, was speaking with eqbal frankness -at a meeting -of that body. He considered ‘(the present atjossilng land tumul.t of society represented the emergence of reason-—the self-conscious «social in;« stinct. It was Well ‘to See, Mr Dyson said, if the increasing acerbity might not be due «to attempts .t-o block a force which must find -an outlet or burst that seeking ‘to confine 'it. Although no figures were available from 1915-1918,, the annual production grew fnoni £218,000,000 in 1913, to £270,000,000 in 1916. ‘taking this into consideration, it might reasonably be doubted if capitalists had suf‘r"ered as much as labour.’ Here was a ‘potent eausc for trouble, which would argue that wages must. be increased to a greater proportion of the product‘ of ir\dustry. In; Ithose branches where prices of products were not set'tled by world conditions, the‘ world must even face some broad supervision of profits to avoid the endless cycle of ineffective increases in wages, which merely returned, with interest, upon the community. Such a condition would further argue that -there must be no um'eason!a'blC opposition to those improvements in the condition of the worker, which industry ‘could bear, as-, for instance, unemployment and sickness insuranee, Upon these things alone Could be built"a rational faith in constitutional development. It is significant that Ml‘ Dyson concluded his remarks on very similar‘ lines to Mr Justice Hig-gins, by suggesting that the way to the Arbitration Court should be shorn of its diffieultics.