LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 72, 27 March 1937, Page 13

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES. (By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) I UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Monday, March 29.—Dominion Painters' Conference. Wednesday, March 31.—Laundry Workers. Thursday, April I.—Perry Employees' (a.m. and p.m. shifts) Tilers' Committee. I A special meeting of the Amalgamated Engineering and Allied Trades' Union will be held in the Trades Hall next Thursday evening at 7.30 o'clock, when the tinsmiths, sheet metal workers, tinners, etc., and canister workers' awards will be discussed. LABOUR UNITY CONFERENCE. ' The coming annual conference of the New Zealand Labour party will deal largely with the question of a United Labour party in the Dominion. Hitherto there have been two sections of thought among the workers, under the titles of the New Zealand Alliance of Labour and the Federation of Trades and Labour Councils of New Zealand, each with a large number of trade unions affiliated. Now that Labour occupies the Treasury Benches, it is felt by both sections that they should combine and form one big official organisation in support of the policy of the Labour government. Several conferences have been held between the two sections and the way has been prepared for an amalgamation. The annual conference, which opens' on Easter Monday, will deal with, this important rapprochement. It is expected that this conference on Monday ng£t will be a record one for the Dominion so far as numbers are concerned. Many delegates left by train lfl.st evening, and many more are leaving by the Limited to-morrow evening. PAINTERS' FEDERATION Delegates from the unions which form the Dominion Federation of Painters' Unions will be present in Auckland on Easter Monday, attending the biennial conference of the federation which, this year, is held in Auckland after an absence of 14 years from this city. The conference will be formally opened at the Trades Hall at 10 a.m. and will sit all day. It is expected that the sessions will occupy Tuesday and Wednesday also, as a large and comprehensive agenda paper has been prepared by the executive which this year has been located in Wellington. Many matters relating to the painting trade will be dealt with, including preparation of the next painters' award, use of paint-spray-ing machines, the registration of painters, the Painters' Health Protection j Bill, apprentices' conditions and a better System of citing parties to an award, such as obtains in Australia, where additional parties to awards are notified by the simpler method of advertising in the daily Press, instead of by the present cumbersome New Zealand method of sending notices by post. The question of One Big Union of painters for the Dominion, vjrith branches in every town, instead of the many painters' unions at present in existence, is also to receive the. attention of the conference.

The social side of the conference is [not being lost sight of, for an energetic committee of the local union is to show the visiting delegates the sights of the city, and a smoke concert has been arranged for Tuesday evening in the Trades Hail. The delegates from the Auckland union are Messrs. T. Jackson (president) and H. Campbell (secretary).

EMPLOYMENT FOR CASUALS. The difficult position of casual workers, as compared with those earning a weekly in maintaining themselves and their families on casual work ;entailing lost time through weather conditions and stoppage* caused by outdoor conditions .is receiving serious, attention in Britain, where it would appear conditions in the building trades are aimilar to those obtaining in New Zealand.

Steps are beiflg taken this year in the direction of decasualising labour in the building industry. One will be a scheme to insure men against time lost through wet weather; this has long been discussed, but now it is nearly ready for operation. Another step will be the overhaul of the system of apprenticeship, for which the unions are going to press. Linked with this will be plans for the closer control of entry into the industry. Circumstances are compelling attention to these matters. The building industry has grown up on casual labour. In most other industries an employer engages men to do particular classes of work, and they may be employed more or less continuously to do that work on contract after contract. In building, on the other hand, the custom has been for men to be engaged on a particular contract and then to be discharged. Only a small proportion of men is regularly attached to on® employer. The majority form a pool into which the contractor dips as his need arises, and into which men are thrown again when the job is finished. Indeed, building is even more casual. The man is not engaged for the duration of the job. He can be discharged at an hour's notice. The industry has retained _ far , more fully than any other the old idea of the journeyman. This casual relation has, moreover, been strongly defended by the building operative in the past. There was a big strike in England in the middle of last century to retain the hourly notice. But revolutionary changes in the industry have produced a changed attitude. To-day jobs are shorter in duration. Labour-saving machinery and new methods in almost every branch have intensified production. ! We see great buildings being completed in six months that a generation ago would have taken nearer four years. Moreover, the increased building activity of to-day is not equally spread over the country; it. is concentrated in the big industrial centres. And, at the same time, it is, more and more, done by great centralised firms instead of by numerous small local contractors.

All these factors taken together—and there are others—have effectively upset the traditional basis of employment in the building industry, and modern organisation is needed to meet modern conditions. These* vast problems have been cautiously approached for some time by the organised employers and the organised operatives, meeting in _ their national joint council. But speeding-up of action is being induced by events. Exceptional demands for certain classes of skilled labour in widely separated areas, coupled with a lack of balance between sections of labour and between classes of work —these are factors forcing attention to the whole problem. Unfortunately, the industry is handicapped by non-unioniste among the employers and non-unionists among operatives. But there is sufficient force among those who are organised, on both i fides, to put through the necessary ' plans of reorganisation.