ENGINEERING DEADLOCK.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17437, 24 April 1922, Page 7

ENGINEERING DEADLOCK.

EXTENSION OF LOCK-OUT.

THE POINT AT ISSUE.

(By Cable—Press Association— Copyright.) (Australian and X.Z. Cable Association) LONDON, April 21. The unions affiliated to the Amalgamated Engineering Union are negotiating separately to-day with the employers. The former negotiations broke down. In the afternoon a number of affiliated unions threatened to break away from t)he Shipbuilding Trades Federation unless their negotiations ranched a settlement within two days. (Received April 23rd, 0.0 p.m.) LONDON, April 22.

, Negotiations have been broken off between the Engineering Employers' Federation and the 47 unions outside, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and the employers have ordered an extension of the lock-out affecting another 600,000 men.

Correspondence which has been published slhows that the employers demanded that they should be the sole Judges as to what changes in managerial functions in workshops practice should be effected, without consulting x hc unions.

The workers' negotiators expressed the opinion that no union could accept such a stipulation as a condition precedent to negotiations. They declare that tihe employers have apparently decided to extend the lock-out in order to bring the unions to heel. Dr. T. .T. Macnamara, Minister of Labour, i:s conferring with the paitios. ,

The "Manchester Guardian," referring to the dispute last month, said: An informant with inside knowledge oi tilio engineering industry, who is nolo to take a detached view of the dispute, points out that there is serious misunderstanding in the minds of the public about what is really meant by 'managerial function*." The masters stand firm on their position that they cannot give up to the men any of their managerial functions. The men deny that they are asking them to do so'when they challenge the light of the employers to de:ide whether or not the men shall work overtime on ordinary production work. The point overlooked is the distinction between overtime on ordinary work and overtime on special or "rush" wor.c. The men say they have never contested that it is for the masters to say when overtime caused by breakdowns or production against delivery dates is required. But by a long-established custom they were always consulted (until the agreement was forced upon them, last November) when it was a question of arranging for overtime on normal production work. . The men's side contend that if the employers have the right to order overtime when they please and without arranging with the men, they.in effect tear up the agreement whidh. fixes a working week of forty-seven hours. If this view is correct, the men are betting up no new claim to a share in managerial rights, but ask simply to maintain the custom by which they have had a voice in the fundamental conditions of their Working lives. It is true, of course, that in the agreement of last November, which was rejected on a ballot, the men did give up any claim to consultation. They did so'because they were threatened with an immediate lock-out, and the Union «ui well known to be not in a position to fight, with 100,000 members unemployed and the industry in a depressed state.

The attitude of tho employers in declaring tho lock-out and refusing compromise is from this point of view regarded as the mere exercise of force. But, according to this view, tho real dispute is not concerned with shop stewards or-works committees, but with, the employers' . demand—backed; of course, by tho agreement which the men themselves have signed—for complete control of the overtime work.