AUCKLAND BONUS SCHEME

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27920, 17 March 1956, Page 2

AUCKLAND BONUS SCHEME

CARPENTERS EXPRESS CONCERN

STOP-WORK MEETING TO BE HELD

Canterbury building trades workers will hold a stop-work meeting in protest against the introduction in Auckland, by the Fletcher Construction Company, of a bonus scheme, which they say is based on payment by results. The decision to hold a stopwork meeting was announced yesterday by the secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (Mr F. L. Langley). No date has been set for the meeting.

The decision to stop work was made at a meeting on Thursday evening of the executive committees of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union, the Canterbury Carpenters’ Union, and several other building trades unions, together with job delegates. “As a result of the introduction of a payment-by-results scheme in Auckland by one of New Zealand’s largest building firms, and recognising the danger to working conditions by the operation of such schemes—which are piece-work no matter under which title they are introduced—the meeting decided unanimously that as such schemes are against the best interest of the workers and ultimately bring working conditions which are foreign to New Zealand, they should be opposed by the trades unions as a whole,” said a statement issued by Mr Langley.

As a first step to resisting the spread of the scheme to districts outside Auckland the executive committee of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union has urged all branches to seek the cooperation of other building trades unions.

In Christchurch a stop-work meeting is to be held of carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, bricklayers, painters, and builders’ labourers to “expose the danger of such schemes and organise effective resistance.” “Such schemes as the one introduced ultimately lead to what is known as the sweat shop system of employment, shoddy workmanship, and the smashing of working conditions,” Mr Langley’s statement says. “The meeting warns building trade workers that no matter how generous the initial payment, payment-by-results schemes, especially in the building industry, have proven to be against the best interest of the workers and of the industry generally.”