TEACHING BOYS TRADES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 49, 26 August 1931, Page 8

TEACHING BOYS TRADES

; : lir^avlette'r^^hiehllisytoo longiSiir' publication ;iasfulli;Mr*iH.E. Swindell (secretarjr£p£ JBlectiicitiWorkerß'^Union) aiscnsses reeent:'criticißmß of awards "and app^rihticeshipiorder iz inf. their^effect on the employment'of youth's. He maintains that the Labour Department is certainly not to blame, as'it isa guided by apprenticeship ordeti:' and awards. The trouble is due to .financial!, Stringency. "TfieApt and-its amendment? are all 'right so Fay'-.as they go, but what' js '.■the-.use of .'it all when employers cannot find'work for the boys to do? y Most 'of the orders provide for boys from one: to one journeyman, one to two, and in gome cases one to three. At'thepresentytilne .■most of the employers are at ; thelp-.;,wits' end tp find work and wages for] the: boys they; already have, and is it any>*ro'nder that they will not saddle*themselves; with a further five or six years' liability, .If the critics were in touch with what the various trade committees are doing they would have a different talo to tell. We want to be able to train boys efficiently, and this can only be done by watching the whole matter with care, so as not to have an army of lads untrained and turned loose to make a botch of. everything they undertake and expect'to be paid for. Cheap labour is always in somebody's mind, and they care very little about results so long as they themselves are not affected. Mr. Tremayne mentions the electrical trade, and his interviewing an employer regarding a lad who could not be taken on owing to the restrictions. Well, the employers in the electrical trade have had a good innings, as the one to two. proportion has only just made itself felt from the beginning of 1931, so Mr. Tremayne.has been misled. If he will give me the name of the employer I will go into the matter with both of them, and see if any injustice has been done. The recent absurd proportion of boys in the electrical trade has been the cause of so many men now being out of work in the district we cover under our award, namely, nearly 500 at the present .day, with every week telling its tale of more unemployed. Boys are now left sweeping up. the shop.and running messages, .and a lot of the employers are now trying to. transfer the lads to shift their obligations, as they have no"'work for them, and very little profi|, owing to price-cutting, and the "wage-cut, as this 'has made less for pyeryono and ; placed the.industrial spending power down to nil, j . . We'all know it is hard for boys and girls, "and parents are at their wits' end to have some job for their children to go to, but the fault does not lie with any union, Labour Department,' or employer. It has now become, a world-wide problem of how to carry-on industry, and no one seems to be able to find a solution, but we, have' plenty to "criticise what others try to do for the best, and it would be interesting to see how many of those that are criticising employ labour, and particularly apprentices, who have to be bound and taught the trade. Industries at the present time are passing through a sorry stage, and no amount of extra boys \viJJ solve the difficulty, as expert men must be employed to train them, otherwise what is the: use of taking the lads. on to -waste: the employer's time and' money, and they' themselves be ill-trained and then into the unskilled ranks' after- having" wasted theii> youth, with no chance of ever following the trade they'were brought up in." ' ' ' ' ' "'" '"' •'■'■ ■