LABOUR NOTES,

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 14

LABOUR NOTES,

REGISTRATION MONTH.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Wednesday, February 1. Drivers. LA*ST WEEK IN JANUARY. The Arbitration Act provides that particulars of the membership of all industrial unions registered under the Act. must be forwarded to the Registrar of Industrial Unions in Wellington during the month of January in each year. *ueh particulars to show the membership of each union as on December •')!.

This is the Inst week in January, and nil linion returns must be in the hands of the Registrar not later than Tuesday next. All that is necessary to rccord is the names, addresses and occupations of the officers of the union, the total number of members, including the officers, and the location of the registered office of the union. These returns are very simple under the present Act. as compared with the requirements of the earlier Act during the first thirty years of its existence.

In the old days, in addition to the officers' names and addresses, it was necessary to detail the names, addresses and occupations of every financial member of the union, even if the membership extended to thousands. The .January month was always regarded by union secretaries as the heaviest month for office work in the year because of this unnecessary routine work in connection with the furnishing of annual returns. I remember one particular Auckland union with a membership of over 1300 whose annual returns extended over 40 pages of closely typed foolscap sheets on which the postage was ninepence and the secretaries never could understand the use for all these unnecessary particulars. Eventually the Government of the day abolished a lot of these requirements and at present returns are made much simpler. This is fortunate for the union officials of to-day, some of whose membership rolls extend into two or three thousand names.

"WISDOM INSTEAD OF BRICKB."

Taking their cue from the Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, representatives of every branch of industry, both workers and employers, including many Dominion organisations, agreed at a conference held in Parliament House last week, that it was far better that they should throw pieces of wisdom and knowledge at each other instead of bricks, according to a report in this week's "Standard." The conference, which was attended by about 150 delegates, enthusiastically adopted the Minister's suggestion that an advisory council should be set up to discuss all matters affecting industry with the object of all pulling together for the common good of New Zealand as a whole. Among those presertt were: The Hons. D. G. Sullivan, W. E. Parry, F. Jones, W. Lee Martin, and also a number of members of Parliament.

In his address to the delegate*, Mr. Webb said: "We are living in New Zealand and politics can be forgotten until the next season for them. In the meantime we have got to work together and therefore we might pull together for the common good of New Zealand as a whole." He added that shadow sparring or throwing bricks at each other over a fence would not get them very far. He wanted to see the fence removed and pieces of wisdom and knowledge taking the place of bricks.

Mr. McLagan, president of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, moved that the meeting express itself in favour of the formation of an industrial council and that delegates refer the proposals to their organisations for consideration.

Air. VV. J. Mountjoy, secretary of the Wellington Employers' Association, seconded the motion, and it was carried with enthusiasm. Mr. Webb visits Auckland shortly .to Hold a similar conference for the same object. TO PROMOTE SATISFACTION IN' WORK. Writing in the journal of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, Mr. D. Harding, pf the London School of Economics, says: "Incentives formerly meant wage payment systems. And few false conceptions have done more harm in industry. Not only has damage resulted from the strain induced by 'driving* systems of payment, but other more desirable forms of incentive have been ignored. Among these are the worker's-, interest in his work and his social satisfactions derived from it. One of the most important functions in the science of industrial psychology now being applied to human problems is to attack the feeling of being an unheeded cog. 'Money success' is no compensation for the sense of loss of social individualality and worth within a worker's occupational group. A direct approach to .the problem is to give workers more information about the firm's work and their owm part in it. By increasing the worker's interest in what he does, industrial psychology is laying the foundation of the social attitudes that industrialists constantly desiderate—the 'team spirit' and a loyalty to one's firm." EMPLOYER'S TRIBUTE TO TRADE UNIONISM. Colonel Sir Reginald Dorman-Rmith, M.P., in a, letter to the chairman of a meeting called to discuss the benefits of trade unionism, wrote:— "I believe that the work of trade unions in the field of industry has deserved, and should receive, the support of the workers and encouragement from employers. "I am convinced that an everincreasing number of employers realise the value of trade unions as informed and responsible bodies, and that if industrial matters are to be'dealt with on the facts they are wise to deal with those who have a definite stake in the industry. "As far as the workers are concerned it seems to me that there can be no doubt whatever but that the trade union movement has been of inestimable benefit to them.

"I would like to say this: In every walk of life there are people who are apt to accept any benefits which mmy be obtained for them without feeling under any obligation to contribute to those organisations which are working on their behalf. "That ©imply does not seem to me to be 'playing cricket.'" MASS PRODUCTION. Occasionally we hear grumblef from critics that the Government Housing Department will not cope with the demand for houses for the next ten or twenty years. Mr. A. Tyndall, Director of Housing, stated in an interview that the Department at present is completing a new house every 40 minute* of the working day.

PANIC IN BERLIN FACTORIES. It is reported from a large works in Berlin that the fear of war is to be found everywhere, and that the difference between the atmosphere and that prior to 1914 is immense. Everyone is extremely depressed, not only because it is better known to-day what war means, but also because of absolute hopelessness as to the outcome of a war for Germany. Those who feel that the Hitler regime is bound to be brought down by a military defeat can naturally not say so openly, but even the most dyed-in-the-wool Nazis are depressed, however much they might have talked about destroying their enemies when they did not think a war would come.

Xo one talks of anything else but war in the rest pauses; workers who have spent holidays abroad in recent years are always being asked, quite openly, if they do not know of some way of getting across the frontier secretl'v.

Workers often say that they will know what to do if they arc sent to the front— get taken a prisoner, and remain a prisoner till the end of the war—or else desert, and this is said openly, although there are some Nazis among "the staff." The Nazis dare not open their mouths except when they also take part in the grumbling. Our observer in this factory writes that he is trying very hard to talk to workers from other factories, and that from everything he hears the same situation is to be found elsewhere. Tht Reichswehr has its own observation service in the factories, and one wonders what the generals think of this -feclin" on the ev e of a war.—I.F.T.U. ~