TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 141, 13 June 1912, Page 8

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

(By "INBUSTRIAL TRAMP.")] TO-tO?. ME-KETNGS FOE THI? WE__ Tbls Evening, June 13—Stone Masons. •Friday, June 14—Furniture Trades, Brewery Employees. Sunday, June 16—"General Labourers (special). Monday, June 17—Cutters and Pressors, Plasterers, ' Secretaries. Tuesday, June 18—Central Carpenters, Engineers. "Wednesday, June I&—Tramway (special). The Auckland delegates to the New Zealand Federation of Labour conference, have now arrived home, Mr. P. Fraser arriving via Waihi on Tuesday. The delegates' reports on business transacted at the conference have vet to be furnished to their respective unions. Owing to the difl-culty of having a full meeting through the members ] working shifts, the Auckland general labourers are holding a special meeting at the Trades Hall on Sunday afternoon at two o'clock, which will be addressed by Messrs. W. E. Parry, P. Fraser, J. B. King, and probably R. Semple (if he can arrive in time). The members of the Auckland Tramways Union are holding a special meeting at the same place on, Tuesday morning and evening to receive delegates' reports. j

One of the most progressive unions in tbe Dominion, in my opinion, is the Otago Grocers' Assistants' Union. Every winter a series of lectures is provided at monthly intervals, each lecture bearing- upon some essential part of the trade of a grocer, and given by an expert in his particular line- I have to acknowledge the receipt of the 1912 syllabus, and it includes lectures on: "A Word About Coffee and Chicory," "Some Points in Tea-buying," "Parcel-wrapping Demonstration and Competition," '"The Man Behind the Counter/ "'Something About Cheques." These lectures are open to anyone connected with the trade, even non-unionists being welcome. It ia work like this that enhances the value of a trades union to its members, especially when it is considered that up to the present there is no proper system of apprenticeship in connection with the grocery trade of the Dominion, under which the boy can be turned out a practical journeyman. Both the Wellington and Auckland Grocers' Assistants' Unions have disputes now under the former before the Court on June 24, and the latter before the Concilia-tion Commissioner on July 2, in which a proper system of apprenticeship is asked for.

The Auckland Secretaries' Union is still in operation. At the outset it was thought that the secretaries of the smaller unions, men who had to work j at their respective callings, in addition to carrying on their secretarial wor. would seize tbe opportunity of joining the union, in order to get mutual help and advice in carrying out their duties, | but this hope has not been realised, and the union consists mostly of paid secretaries, who thus utilise the meetings of the union as a sort of advisory board, or mutual aid society. It has now been decided, owing to most of the members having meetings of their unions to attend to at night, that in I future the meetings shall be held on the third Monday in every month in the afternoon. The Waihi strike is still in progress, and four weeks have elapsed since the men stopped work. From the news that! appears in the Press, it -would appear that there is a deplorable amount of dissatisfaction amongst the strikers at the: seat of war, but speaking to several Waihi miners in town over the position, they have assured mc that, as Mark, Twain characterised the rumour of his I death, "It has been much exaggerated"' The Waihi men are as ■ solid now as the day on which j the trouble started, and there is no talk of surrender. I certainly think a.n official report should be issued by j the committee for publication, so that the Auckland" public should be put in possession of both sides of the ques- j tion. In the recent Brisbane strike, the I executive saw the wisdom of such a course, and issued a daily bulletin, and distributed copies to unions all over the Commonwealth.. There are times wben "silence is golden," but not when speech is absolutely necessary to proclaim the truth. While the (Federation of Labour conference, was in progress in Wellington, the transport section, embracing the waterside workers of the Dominion, met to discuss matters pertaining to their particular calling. A schedule of working conditions was drawn up to take effect from January 1. 1913, and this' has been approved of by the New Zealand Federation of Labour. I have been asked to draw the attention of my readers to a very worthy movement that has been set on foot to provide for the family of a late member of the Auckland General Labourers' Union, who have been left destitute by the loss of their breadwinner. The mem ber in question, while following his occu--1 pation as a miner on the West Coast, became subject to a dread complaint, that eventually carried him off, notwitbi standing tbe fact that he had tried to overcome the complaint by a. change of residence and work in our northern I climate. The' Auckland Benefit Society ' are holding a concert in aid of the .dependents to-morrow evening in th_ new Trades Hall, and a. good programme ' has been prepared, independent of th. worthy object for which it is given. Since j the. formation of this benefit society 'over £1500 has been raised by its members for charitable objects in Auckland, land" ? further addition to that aggregate is expected to toe realised as a, result of to-morrow's concert. I ! The Tinsmiths • and Sheet Metal | Workers' Unions of the Commonwealth arc. endeavouring to effect a federa--1 tion. Within a few months it is probable that this -will be accomplished, as the Melbourne union has organised a, similar body in Tasmania, and this means that a branch of the proposed federation exists in each of the States. The New South Wales Union has recently obtained a variation of award for men employed on gas meters. The new rate is 1/3 an hour, instead of 1/2, as formerly. A public memorial was unveiled in 'London last week to six men of TolI puddle, who were tried and convicted at Dorset, ia 1833, of conspiring, for , the betterment of wages—which were. I at that period only 7/ per week —and were sentenced to a term of seven" I yeais' transportation to Botany Bay, I the sentences being remitted in 1836. ! The memorial adjoins the Wesleyan, Chapel, in which some of the prison-1 ers were preachers before they were tried and transported. An unusual position has arisen in.-] connection with the N.STvV, Wire Mattress Wages Board. The Furniture Trade Union has claimed thast wages-; should be paid according to the day.sy&tem only, on the ground, thai; Kew South Wales is .<*• only State tbafci permit- the piecework" -JH-Usit Ssu. _H_j

trade. A section of tbe members, flgywever, ' '.favour (piecework, __, several of them are appearing before the Board in opposition to the union claim, and to urge that the system of payment should be made optional. During a strike of tramway men at Cardiff, England, last month, the manager of the car company, Mr. Arthur Ellis, whose salary ia £1,000, drove a Car about breakfast time to and from Roath, a residential suburb. What is probably a "record" in I rapid bouse building was established at I Olympia, London, last month, where an 11-roomed villa was erected in less than sis; days. A staff of expert workmen was employed, and they entered upon their task with the keenness of sportsmen. The work involved the handling of 250 tons of material and the placing in position of 75,000 .pricks. The tiling of tbe villa was accomplished in 20 -jours, during which time were fixed 8,500 hanging tQes on the walls and 23,700 tiles on the roofs, gables, eaves, etc. This ideal bouse possesses the latest telephone number in the London district. The villa was rendered dry by portable coke ovens, and paperhangers, painters, and other decorators at once set to their work. As soon as the task of these workmen was finished a firm of upholsterers took over the furnishing of the ideal house, each room being treated in a special manner. It was a poor metal worker, living in London, who invented the thimble, and it is the same old story over again! For necessity with him was the mother of invention. The metal worker bad no wife, and was forced to sew his buttons on to his coat himself. Well, he hated pricking his fingers, and one morning, exasperated, cried out: "111 think of something to keep my fingers from being pricked!" The idea of "a, thumb ball," bell shaped, flashed through his mind; and we may add that the "thumb ball" is still in use with many sailmakers, who, somehow, do not seem to care for the ordinary thimble. The metal worker showed his "thumb ball" to all his friends, who naturally wondered they had never thought of such a thing themselves. Then came the steel and silver shield, very nearly as we know it now, for the middle finger was thought out by him, and he made such an immense number of his thimbles for the people in the country round, who paid him well for his trouble, that soon he became quite a rich man. The story goes that the descendants of the metal worker, who ■turned a thimble maker, are still living on some of the gold that the good fellow accumulated.