CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 147, 22 June 1940, Page 8

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

SKILLED LABOUR. (To the Editor.) I read in your issue of the "Star" of June 21 of the Hon. P. C. Webb'i spirited defence of the waterside workers and of his erroneous statement that "taking their earnings throughout the year, they were the poorest paid of the higher class of skilled labourers in the Ddtninion." I rather think that Mr. Webb has overlooked the very essential and very skilled calling of the store wool-classer. This worker gets 2/9 per hour for about five to six months of the year (if he is lucky). If he gets work in a woollen mill the chances are he will receive 2/7 per hour for a forty-hour week. They who have work all the year round are in a very small minority. A normal healthy wool-classer can go on to the wharf and trundle trucks, but I definitely defy any waterside worker to step inside a wool store and class wool in a month or a year. Some people will never learn to class wool, just as some will never learn art. A wool-classer's calling Is one of gift plus lengthy application. I commenced my study of classing at the age of sixteen when I swept the shearing board in wool sheds. Then came shearing, lectures at agricultural colleges, books, study of genetics, practical breeding of flock's and station management. I am now a classer with plenty more to learn vet and have spent many pounds in learning what Ido know now. I would ask Mr. Webb to compare the actual earnings of the average union waterside worker with the actual earnings of the average union wool lasser over a period of 12 months. 46/4SS.