PAYMENT BY RESULTS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23360, 20 June 1941, Page 10

PAYMENT BY RESULTS

Sir,—l read with interest Mr Machin’s statement in “The Press” of June 17: “It surprises me .. . that we cannot' get a hearing for the suggestion that there should be payment more generally by results.” Mr Machin’s remarks appear to throw the blame mostly on trade unions. To a large extent this is true, as piecework is strongly opposed by trade union secretaries, and their influence is exerted either to prevent its being introduced or to have it abolished or curtailed where it is already in operation.

But the employers also have to carry a large share of the responsibility for this objection to piecework. In almost ■every instance where this form of payment has been in operation certain employers have sought to exploit the high wages earned by the more efficient men as an example of alleged overpayment and an argument to have the rates re‘duced to such a standard that the less skilled man, although highly efficient but for various reasons unable to keep pace with a few of the faster men, has to work at top pressure for little if any more than he would receive at time rates. I qualify this statement by saying "some” employers. A number assess the value of the work performed not by the wages paid but by the actual output. But these employers, through their own organisations, have to fall in line with the conditions set by the more unscrupulous section; and this gives the union secretaries an excellent argument against piecework in general. The other argument mostly put forward is that by paying men at a weekly rate most machines are used at less than half their productive capacity; therefore, two machines and two' men are needed in place of one; the union strength is doubled and a possibility of a shortage of skilled men is created, thus giving the union an excellent argument for forcing up the weekly wages. An investigation by Mr Machin into these aspects would give him a line to work on as to why payment by results is so little used in New Zealand to-day. —Yours, etc., BOTH SIDES. June 19, 1941.