LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 282, 27 November 1937, Page 16

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Tuesday, November 30—Engineers. Wednesday. December 1 —General Labourers. Tram way in en (a.m. and p.m.). Local Bodies' Labourers. Taxi-drivers. Thursday. December -'--Tilers' Committee. Brush, Broom and Mop Workers. THE SECOND COURT. Since writing last week's notes the personnel of the second Court of Arbitration lias been completed by the appointment of the two assessors. Mr. W. E. Anderson, the employers' assessor, is well known in Auckland as the secretary for many years of the Auckland Employers' Association, and is a son of the late Hon. G. J. Anderson, who entered the House of Representative* as member for Mat aura in 1008, and was afterwards Minister of Labour in the Reform Cabinet for many years. Mr. A W. Croskery, the workers' assessor, is well known to Auckland

unionist* as a prominent union aecre- I tary at the Wellington Trades Hall, his j principal union since 1<» 11 having been the, Wellington Shop Assistants' Union. Although a Wellington man, he was born in Auckland, and received his education at Dr. Mo.Vrthur's College in Upper Queen Street. He is a draper's assistant by trade, but has a good knowledge of most of the trades and callings, as he has acted as union advocate in most of them before Conciliation commissioners and the Arbitration Court in all fiarts of the Dominion. The deputyworkers' assessor appointed to net when Mr. Croskery is not available is Mr. G. T. Thurston, of the Canterbury Engineering Trades' Union, who is also well-known in Auckland trade circles. as a few years ago lie spent some months in Auckland at the Trades Hall in reorganising the local branch of the Engineering Trades Union. It may Ih> remembered that two or three years ago Mr. Thurston went to Geneva as workers' representative at the 1.L.0. conference held there. All the members of the new Court are well qualified by e\|>erience in Industrial affairs, and will start their work right away.

DOMINION PAINTERS. | A complete settlement in the Dominion painters' dispute was arrived at in Conciliation Council in Wellington this week. The wages agreed on were 2/0 an hour, an increase of 3d an hour, the hours to be 40 per week, worked on the first five days of the week. The other points agreed upon were the usual ones incorporated in an award or agreement, with one exception, a most interesting one which marks a new departure from the old awards or agreements, and is the outcome of the introduction of the 40-hour week. To prevent work l>eing done at week-ends for private individuals at less than award rates, a special clause was agreed to, making the payment of double-time rates compulsory for all work done on Saturdays. It will be a breach of award if any person engages in work on a Saturday, Sunday, or any of the specified holidays without first obtaining permission from the Labour Department.

It must be noted that this is agreed to by employers and workers, for this end-of-the-week work at lower than the standard rates affects the regular employers who are bound by an award more seriously than it does the unions of workers, for it tends to limit the work available to the master painter and to affect him in keeping his staff of men engaged. This clause carries my memory back to nearly 30 years ago to an experience I had as secretary of the Auckland Farriers and General Blacksmiths' Union when conducting an application for nn award for the farriers. In the conciliation proceedings the master farriers complained bitterly of the action of one of the journeymen farriers who opened a blacksmith's shop at his residence at Mount Roskill at which he worked after noon on Saturdays on returning home from his regular week's work for one of the lending blacksmiths in the city. He ehoed the horses of neighbouring farmers at lower than the standard rates on Sundays as well as on Saturday afternoons, for there was no jHiliceman on the road to Waikowai in those early days, and the forge was well patronised. The union sympathised with the master farriers, and I drafted a clause in which, on condition that the employers engaged only members of the union, the union, on its part, undertook to declare all such week-end work illegal. When the agreement went on to the Arbitration Court to be made an award of the Court, the prohibitory clause was eliminated and Mr. Justice Sim ruled that the Court hsd no right to decide the question as to how a man I should employ himself in his own time.

It remains to be seen whether the opinion of the present day Court has altered from the Court of 30 years ago. BRITISH FACTORY ACT. Mr. R. Brightmajj, M.Sc, F.1.C., writing in the "Congregational Quarterly" on "Public Opinion and the New Factory Act," stresses the importance of a lively public conscience for reform. He says: —

"Although the 47-or 48-hour week is the normal week, many cases are reported where the working week exceeds 48 hours, not only for busy periods, but often continuously for months at a time, or even for most of the year. Work up to 50, and even (10, hours a week has been common in laundries and in the metal trades ia the Midlands, as well as in leather, bakelite and other industries and the woollen and worsted trades.

"Many cases of serious illegal employment are reported in bakeries, dry cleaning works, garages, laundries and depots for developing amateurs' films. Some of these are highly scandalous, such as the employment of boys of 14 to 17 for as many as 80 hours a week, of girls of 14 up to 14 to 15 hours a day, and of women for an unbroken 20 days' work. The Home Secretary himself in the first debate on the new bill gave examples of 150, 200 and even 300 hours of overtime being worked in the year.

"Much stricter limits on working hours of women and young persons have been imposed by the new Act. For young persons under 16 the weekly hours to be worked must not exceed 44 unless the industry can show that it would be seriously prejudiced if deprived of the labour of such workers for the additional hours, that the additional hours would not be prejudicial to their health, and that their occupation is likely to lead to permanent employment.

"With these exceptions, the normal weekly limit for women and young persons is now 48 hours instead of CO, and the daily limit nine hours instead of 101. Overtime is permitted for those over 10 up to 100 hours in a calendar year, and for women only up to 150 in industries liable to seasonal and other pressure.

"The penalties at present inflicted for some of the bad cases of over-work already mentioned are ridiculously inadequate; they make the offence a paying proposition, and they are certainly no deterrent in the case of unscrupulous employers. Evidently the pressure of public opinion is required on the magisterial Bench no less than in factory management, and a Government which professes so great an enthusiasm for physical fitness and health might do well to convey a strong hint to the

offending quarters that leniency is as ill-timed as it is reprehensible. "The new Factory Act should not, therefore, encourage any excessive optimism in this matter of industrial health and safety. The toll which is taken of life and happiness by accidents largely preventable is far too high for any satisfaction. Even under the new Act our standards fall short of enlightened practice in other countries and of those which should be set in view of our scientific knowledge to-day, whether in the field of management, industrial health, industrial psychology, protective clothing, lighting, air conditioning, and ventilation and technical control generally.

"What is needed is the creation of an informed public opinion, fully aware of the possibilities, unceasing in its vigilance, and resolutely determined to eliminate the abuse of health and safety at present far too common in our industrial system, and not least to see that overtime is kept within the limits of reasonable emergency and due proportion in view of the mass of unemployment which still persists throughout the land."