LABOUR DEPARTMENT’S REPORT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23413, 21 August 1941, Page 4

LABOUR DEPARTMENT’S REPORT

Fewer Industrial Disturbances

(P.R.) WELLINGTON, August 20. Industrial disturbances in New Zealand during the year ended March 31, 1941, totalled 49, compared with 70 in the previous year and 68 the year before, according to the annual report of the Department of Labour, presented in the House to-day. The report is the department’s fiftieth, and it is mentioned that whereas the original staff of the department was one officer the present staff is 231, and about 180 parttime employees. Disturbances during the. year resulted in, lost time equal to 24,082 working days, compared with 43,776 the year before. There were 20 disturbances in the mining industry, seven in the shipping and waterfront industries, and 12 in the freezing industry. More employers’ unions, and fewer workers’ unions, compared with a year earlier, are recorded. Employers’ unions number 269, against 264 the previous year, with a total membership of 11,169, against 9893. Workers’ unions number 432, against 442 in 1939-40, with a total membership of 248,081, against 254,664. Sums totalling £17,183, against £25,008 the year before, were collected by departmental officers for workers who had,been underpaid. Further amounts of arrears totalling £17,915 were paid by employers at the instance of inspectors to the workers concerned. The total involved for the year was thus £35,098. One hundred and forty-three cases were heard during the year under the Workers’ Compensation / Act.

“A comparison indicates that the protection afforded under the Fair Rents Act, 1936, is availed of by tenants to a degree bearing a marked relation to the acuteness of the housing shortage, as disclosed by the results of the housing survey,” the report says, in referring to the operations of the Fair Rents Act. There > were 6213 applications during the year, against 6059 the year before. A decrease in the number of factories registered in the Dominion is shown. The total was 17,940, against 18,141, but there was an increase ’of 3419 factory workers for the year, the rise since the war began being about 9000. The principal increases were in the footwear, clothing, engineering, glass making, meat freezing, papermilling, tobacco and cigarette, and woollen milling industries. “It is perhaps too early to draw definite conclusions as to the effect of the transfer of men to the armed forces, and to the extent that women have replaced them,” the report continues. “Employment in the motor and cycle engineering trades, which recorded an increase from 4808 in 1933-34 to 8399 in 1939-40, fell away to 7258. Apart from the effect of the rationing of petrol, the withdrawal of men for 'Air Force units has probably affected this trade in a, greater ratio than others. With the necessity for greater production in several trades for war purposes, shift work for women has been introduced by emergency regulations, and similar provision has been made foy male workers on certain essential war work where such provision had not been made in awards of the Arbitration Court, The importance, in a time when expansion or replacement of plant and machines is a matter of difficulty or impossibility, of the fuller use of equipment and buildings possible under the shift system has not been generally appreciated. Overtime worked in factories during the year discloses a considerable increase.”