STRIKE RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 April 1922, Page 5

STRIKE RECORD.

YEARLY WAGE LOSSES. In the early days of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, an enthusiastic visitor who came to observe its operation referred to New Zealand as “a country without strikes.” Experience has shown that conciliation methods have not altogether stopped strike troubles, but compared with other countries New Zealand seems to show a fairly moderate record of losses, though the statistics are on the up grade. The record of industrial disturbances •for 1921 shows that there were 77 outbreaks, only two —coal mining and cargo working—being important. These two industries had 9676 workers idle at some period during the year owing to strikes, the total number of workers affected in all disputes being 10,433. The average duration of trouble was slightly under ten days, and the total wage losses amounted to £90.332. The previous year’s losses in wages through strikes was £40,423, so that it is evident that the difficulties of the economic position became reflected in the labor situation of last year. When times were booming, increases in pay, especially on the waterfront, in the handling of products carrying a high price, were readily granted, but the pinch has come, and with it some increasing friction. in the industrial sphere. In 1920 the wage losses through strikes" in the mining industry amounted to more than three-quarters of the whole sum. The 1920 strike figures were unusually large for New Zealand owing to the fact that such a large proportion of the railway staff went off duty for a few days- Lost year’s total of over ten thousand men affected by strikes was, however, the record since 1913, when the waterside dispute sent the total of men affectea during that year to 13,400.