CLOSING OF SAWMILLS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 68, 13 December 1938, Page 13

CLOSING OF SAWMILLS

Effect On Employees And On Timber Supplies

COMMENT BY MINISTER

Reference to the appeals by himself and by the president of the Dominion Federated Sawmillers’ Association that sawmills should not carry out their reported intention of closing down on December 9 till after the Christmas holidavs, was made yesterday by the Minister of Labour. Mr. Armstrong.. He said that the reports so far received provided an interesting commentary on the demands so frequently and loudly made to him by employers and the dailv Press that drastic steps should be taken to deal with workers who held up industry. "I have received information, said Mr Armstrong, "that in two Southland sawmilling districts alone. 13 mills have closed down throwing 200 men out of employment over the Christmas period beside depriving them of the paid holidays they earned during the year, and, equally serious, cutting off tl > supply of timber nt a time when the country is in urgent need of it to overtake the housing shortage. Not only that, but as a consequence I have received a request to provide public works to enable these 200 men to earn something to keep them and their families over the holidays. That such a situation should arise when the country needs every foot of timber those men could cut shows a state of affairs in their industry at least which requires looking into.” The Minister said that while he was prepared to admit that the need existed for legislation to discourage needless hold-ups of industry on the part of workers, be could not fail to be convinced, when confronted by the present spectacle of a section of employers deliberately ignoring an appeal from the president of their own organization and from the Government to do the just and reasonable thing by carrying on, that similarly drastic measures were needed to deal with employers who unnecessarily hold up industry. Mr. Armstrong said that he was aware that some of the mill-owners could show that they had closed down so earlv at the behest of merchants who handled their timber, but be considered that such an explanation merely diffused the blame without diminishing the offence. His own practical knowledge of the sawmilling industry informed him that there was ample space abound most mills to stack nil and more than could have been cut. in the period for which the mills had closed. He hoped that even yet the owners concerned would reconsider the matter in the light both of the country’s urgent -need of dry timber and of the interests of the workers and their dependants.