APPRENTICES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 8

APPRENTICES

AND THE ENGINEERING TRADE.

Members of the committee of the Wellington Engineers' Union gave consideration last evening to a statement attributed to tho Minister of Labour, the Ulon. J. G. Anderson, to the effect that there was a shortage of craftsmen, particularly in the engineering trade, with which statement, as reported, the members did not altogether agree, and the secretary, Mr. W. Bromley, was instructed by the meeting to write to the Minister and ask whether he aad been correctly reported in view of the fact that-within knowledge of the union there was no shortage of engineers, in Wellington, at any rate. In conversation with a "Post" reporter this morning, Mr. Bromley referred to the fact that vastly different conditions were laid down in regard ,to the r,n;nber pf apprentices who might be employed in proportion to the number of lou.-iiey-™es in ti?6 engineering and in other trades. Tie proportion of apprentices to journeymen-in the carpentry, furni-ture-working, moulding, boiler-making, and other trades was generally cue apprentice to three journeymen, but in the turning a nd fitting trades the proportion was very different, two apprentices to one journeyman, and there, to his mind, lay very much of the trouble, lor other trades were being starred of beginners. It had been said that there was not a tailor's apprentice in New Zealand at the present time, largely of course, owing to the specialisation of industry. There was no shortage of tiained engineers, and actually men who had S? d*lr tims were engaged on rehef work at the present time at 12s per day, and there were trained engineers in Auckland just now who had expressed nndTnf^o^- 1101 "*"** * °f Another point Mr. Bromley made was that in many instances the trained engineer could draw very little more sflary than the unskilled worker to recompense him. for the time he had sT.ent on learning his trade, and for the much greater responsibilities that fell % c him. In one case h e had inve S ti4t ß d S™S * complaint from a member that an unskilled man working aiou^idn E"? ,wa» ■*»«*« the same money" he at all 01?!? that i %** was not the ca«e at all—the unskilled man was drawine very considerably more per week.