HOSIERY PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 216, 9 June 1944, Page 6

HOSIERY PRODUCTION

Retention Of Skilled Staff Claimed Essential REHABILITATION PROBLEM “Our ability to rehabilitate men coming back Horn the war is dependent on maintaining women m the industry, said Air. .1. Staples, tactory manager of Bond’s Hosiery AJills Ltd., during the hearing by the Wellington Industrial Manpower Committee yesterday of an appeal by an employee of tbe firm against, the decision of the district manpower officer refusing her permission to terminate her employment. The committee comprised .Messrs. A. W. Croskery (chairman), P. Coyle and J. Arthurs. Decision was reserved. Appellant said she had made her home with her married sister. Her parents did not live in Wellington. Her sister and her busband had been transferred to Auckland and she was amyous to join them. She had not done any overtime work with the firm. , Mr. D. H. Rankin, representing the district manpower officer, said the shortage of skilled machinists was most acute, particularly of the type of appellant. Bond’s Hosiery had lost 18 per cent, of its skilled staff in the past 12 mouths. The replacements, which totalled fi per cent., were unskilled. It was the policy of the manpower office to direct labour from other districts to Wellington to fill urgent vacancies. If existing skilled labour were released it would defeat this policy. Recently hosiery manufacturers were called to a conference by the Factory Controller to discuss ways and means of increasing hosiery production to meet public requirements in fully-fashioned, or couponed, hosiery, said Mr. Staples, to take tlie place of imported stockings selling ut 12/6 a pair. It was considered that the latter were not as good value to the public as those being manufactured locally and retailed at from 6/11 to 8/11. , Mr. Staples explained that retailers bad licences to import hosiery to meet the deficiency between the local output and public requirements. Figures taken out for the whole of the industry showed a deficiency in three months. compared with expected production of 16,926 pairs of hosiery. That deficiency was due entirely to the loss of or scarcity of skilled staff, and the Factory Controller was investigating the possibility of securing the release from the armed forces, both in the Pacific and in New Zealand, of men and women for the trade. In reply .to the chairman, witness said his - firm had former employees in the armed forces in New Zealand, His firm required 13 women and five youths to bring production from 13,000 to 20,000 dozen pairs a year, said Mr. Staples. They did not see any hope of that being achieved because the Factory Controller was unable to have directed to them sufficient skilled or unskilled female labour to enable the rehabilitation of staff which had returned from the forces in the past few weeks. The answer to appellant’s statement of not having worked overtime was that one department could not work without another, and there had been a protest by some sections, particularly young people, against overtime work. Overtime was voluntary among the girls., Further, it had been found that if they did/overtime they usually took a Friday or a Monday off.

The industry was in an awkward position in being asked to produce more coupon hosiery, in that its only hope of successfully rehabilitating men returning from the war was by maintaining and increasing the number of women in the industry, said Mr. Staples. -They were in a position to secure all the material required. If unskilled labour could'be obtained it could be trained. .