FREEZING INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 115, 10 February 1944, Page 4

FREEZING INDUSTRY

Reply To Minister’s Criticism MANPOWER POSITION

A statement by the Minister of Supply, Mr. Sullivan, in Christchurch recently in which he criticized the freezing companies “for making representations about the shortage of labour for the industry and then only taking labour in 'dribs and drabs,’ ” was replied to yesterday by a prominent man in the freezing industry in the following statement: —

"Air. Sullivan, as .Minister of Supply, must know that the freezing industry is working on the 1938 scale ot charges and allowances and has had to take the tn 0 cost-of-living bonuses, the Minimum n age Order and all the commodity price advances on the industry s working stores and materials controlled by Mr. Sullivan's department and by the Price Tribunal,” (lie statement continues. Yet just before Christmas, without any consultation with the employers but, as is now known, with the prior knowledge of the unions, the Government imposed on the industry, without any qualification period, the Industrial Rest Period Emergency Regulations, 1943. “The outcome was lhat advantage was taken of the request for manpower for the industry to divert to the freezing industry for the week before Christmas a considerable body of territorials with only part of their training period still to go, and numbers of men put of the military camps on 28-day transfer. The result to the freezing industry was that to try to utilize these inexperienced men for one week the industry was required to give them full pay for a fortnight. As it was. the cost to Ihe industry of the compulsory rest ' period was between £59.000 and £60,000. “Is it reasonable in nil the circumstances that the Government should —in addition to giving the men in the industry this Christmas box—relieve itself, without any economic benefit, of the cost of territorials and soldiers who otherwise would bjive been on army pay? ■ “The reason given for the compulsory rest period was that the workers were tired with the amount of overtime they had been working and needed the spell/’ the statement adds. “In reality, the freezing industry, on account of the very indifferent spring and other circumstances such as the request to the farmers to hold their lambs for heavier weights, has had the quietest three months in the last four years —many of the factories being unable to operate at all.”