DAIRY FACTORY LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 138, 11 June 1918, Page 2

DAIRY FACTORY LABOUR

PROBLEM OF SKILLED WORKERS.

There have not during the past season been any serious demands from employees for an increase in wiges except in the Auckland Industrial JQistricl, according to the report oi the National Daily Association. A movement is being made, however, to form a new union of employees in tho Wellington Industrial District, so that it is probable employers may receive at an early date demands for a further increase on present wages. "Then is also on the part of some of the managers a disposition to creato a union, which, if it is agreed to, will not be in the best interests of all concerned. There is this fact that should be dealt with: that the managers' scale of wages arranged in September, 1914, needs revision," tho report continues. "The managers have not during the present crisis received a corresponding increase in salary compared with advancos mado to other employees. The question of the rate of wages payable to employees and the conditions of employment in factories is small in view of tho serious problem of tho number of skilled employees who have voluntarily enlisted and the probable number who have been or may bo called up hi the Second Division. The continued depletion of such labour means, a serious blow, if not a disaster, to the industry. It has boen affirmed by some that 'at the present time of stress no man is indispensable to any calling in life, and the • most valuable lifo to tho community, if death comes to such, can be replaced.' This may be true of tho individual, but extend this unwise principle, and what is tho logical deduction ? Suppose all the doctors in this Dominion wero called up on active service; imagine every skilled artisan in any industry going to tho front; how could you safeguard tho health of the community, or how could you sustain and carry on tho essential industry from which the skilled men were taken? The answer is self evident—we must carry on, and to do this some are indispensable."