ARMS PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1940, Page 5

ARMS PRODUCTION

BRITAIN’S EXPANDING EFFORT

MORE WORKERS NEEDED GRADING AND TRAINING UP. EVERY WOMAN TO PARTICIPATE.

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. November 14. “The Tinies” says that the munitions industries will require more than 1,000,000 workers before next August and half of them must be women. Expansion in the engineering. shipbuilding, and metal trades has been considerable since I lie spring and must be twice as great in the coining year.

The armed forces are also increasing and a drastic revision of the schedule of reserved occupations is inevitable. thus robbing the arms industries of many thousands of their best young men because mechanised forces require skilled and semi-skilled men.

The forces themselves are training men and the Ministry of Labour has four training centres for the army, but many skilled workers must in addition be taken from industry. The Minister of Labour, Mr Bevin, has proposed to make up the numbers of arms workers by grading up skilled workers, transferring labour from luxury and semi-luxury trades, extending training in factories, increasing training at Government schools and employing women, beginning where possible with the 250,000 women at present unemployed. Skilled .workers will be .moved to where full-time skilled artisans can be utilised. Women also must be prepared to work away from their homes. Mr Bevin has decided that the highest skill must go into a common pool. The Government will complete the establishment of its 40 planned schools, all of which will work three shifts and provide a four-month course. Mr Bevin has expressed the opinion that the day is fast approaching when every woman must participate in the national effort.

An auxiliary scheme provides for the urgent implementation of training on a vast scale in actual production. Trained workers will be available to industry as a whole, not to. a particular employer. Government grants to employers, instructors and trainees will be extensive. For example, a married male trainee living at home without children will receive £2 Is a week, plus a daily meal or an allowance of 5s a week, plus'travelling expenses beyond two miles. A trainee living away from home will receive approved cost of lodging in addition to allowances. Women trainees will receive slightly less than men.