The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1941. RESTRICTIONS ON EXTRA EFFORT

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 136, 5 March 1941, Page 8

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1941. RESTRICTIONS ON EXTRA EFFORT

The urgent need for some clear-cut, equitable system of industrial co-operation, which will increase production where necessary without friction, misunderstanding or delay, is emphasized by * e proceedings (reported yesterday) taken by an Auckland industrial umoi against a Hamilton firm of farm implement manufacturers According to the published evidence, 24 workers employed by the firm had offered to work an extra hour a day, at ordinary rates of as a patriotic gesture. The offer had been accepted and the arrangement had been carried out for three weeks, but at the end ofit 7 time the firm had been advised by the Labour Department that breach of the metal workers’ award was being committed. AccOxOingly this voluntary arrangement was brought to an end; but the union concerned proceeded to prosecute. Though the information was dismissed by the Hamilton magistrate on the ground that the breach was excusable and that the firm had cancelled the arrangement when it had been told to do so, the case remains subject to an appeal by the union. _ Therefore, at this stage, comment on the pros and cons of the union s action and the circumstances of this particular breach of the provisions of an industrial award, would not be proper. But whatever the ultimate'finding may be on the question of law if and when the case js taken o a court of appeal, it cannot settle the basic problem involved—-the national problem of finding an efficient, convenient means of raising industrial output to meet wartime needs without passing on an uneconomic overload of costs to buyers and consumers—an overload which finds an eventual resting place on the shoulders of the worker himself as well as on every other individual in the community. It is true that the Government has set up bodies to deal with applications for the variation of awards where necessary. It is also true that a number of awards have been “varied to permit of overtime being worked —at overtime rates of pay. On the other hand it is perfectly obvious that, up and down the country, the growing need for greater production without penal increases in production cost, is not being catered for in an adequate, straight-forward manner. Emergency wartime expansion is being discouraged, if not hampered, by the inflexible terms of- awards framed for peacetime conditions and a peacetime economy. The practical aspect of the problem is that of devising some formula by which awards may be varied, as and when required, without cumbersome procedure or the risk of iIV feeling, disputes or actual hold-ups, yet with the full assurance that the legitimate claims* and future interests of the workers who earn their livelihood under the terms of those awards will not be unfairly affected. Some measuie of temporary sacrifice there must be. No thinking member of. the community could imagine that the country’s production can be raised, at the same time as its manpower is depleted, without harder work by all. The great majority of workers in this country undoubtedly are willing to give their share of extra effort, provided they are assured of an equitable distribution of that effort, as well. as the safe-keeping of the standards and principles awarded them in time of peace. The Government could make no greater contribution to the national welfare today than by instituting a Dominion-wide survey of the position relating both to working hours and manpower in industry with a view to bringing about true co-operative action. It will become a national tragedy if the process of industrial reorganization to meet the needs of the most bitterly-fought war in our history continues to be beset and delayed by petty bickering over conditions and advantages which will be irretrievably lost to all unless the war itself is won.