LOSS OF PRIDE IN CRAFTS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24021, 9 August 1943, Page 3

LOSS OF PRIDE IN CRAFTS

NEW ZEALAND WORKERS’’ POSITION production in building INDUSTRY “ The Press" Special Service WELLINGTON, August 7. The view that there was a definite deterioration in the individual output of workers in the building industry and that New Zealanders as a whole were losing pride in their crafts was express'd by the Commissioner of Deface. Production (Mr J. Fletcher) in /'V'acslress to the council of the New Zealand Timber Workers’ Union. Mr Fletcher discussed the need for a new system of payment for labour and instanced the advantages of a system of payment by results in use in Sweden. Careful planning of the future economy of the Dominion and co-opera-tion by all sections of the community if any new order was to succeed were urged by Mr Fletcher. He said that it was to the representatives of the workers in the primary and secondary industries as well as to the professional and financial interests that we must look for leadership in settling the destiny of New Zealand. No plan could succeed if it favoured one section or class at the expense of another or if it was based on a conflict between primary and secondary interests. Labour Factor Mr Fletcher said that the labour factor must not be overlooked. No man would dispute the fact that the legislation brought down 50 or 60 years ago establishing Arbitration Courts and conciliation councils placed New Zealand ahead of any other country in its labour legislation. “The conditions under which you and your fathers worked were sane and reasonable,” he added. “But because they filled the needs of the past, is there any reason why we should not examine them without rancour and without heat? “I speak with 30-odd years’ experience of an industry employing a representative cross-section of the labour of this country, and I state definitely that there is a definite deterioration in the output per man,”' said Mr Fletcher. “Award conditions fixing a minimum wage bring stability to the . indus. triaJist, but what is the cumulative effect? We see to-day the sad spectacle of men losing pride in their craft.” A man’s wage was prescribed for him irrespective of his ability and industry. It would be contended that awards only fixed a minimum rate, but immediately there, was an attempt to differentiate in the labour rates, an employer was heading for trouble. It was generally the worst man in the gang who claimed he should have pay equal to the best worker. Mr Fletcher said that in 1937 he examined labour conditions in Sweden, where the system of payments by results gave the worker a greatly increased rate of pay, and, what was more important, it restored to him his artisan’s pride in his craft. ‘‘l am afraid that to-day pride in workmanship will be definitely lost unless we take definite steps to make it possible for a man to give of his best; and that can only be done by amending the present system,” he said. Swedish System There was a wide difference between the Swedish system and the old method of piecework. Under piecework, the employer fixed the labour factor and the rate he was prepared to pay for a certain article of service. Under the Swedish scheme, the employee and the employer, working in association in the particular industry concerned, fixed the rate. “Again there is the question of cooperative jobs,” Mr Fletcher added. "This involves joint ownership, where labour will split up a contract and the Employers will provide, the capital, / I'ant, and equipment. This is operating certain mills to-day and the men W,. ,^ a ged on it would never go back to ■■'■oie old system.”