FORTY-HOUR WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 106, 6 May 1936, Page 5

FORTY-HOUR WEEK

THE BUILDING TEAKE

EFFECT ON COSTS

GENERAL RISE PREDICTED

(By Telegrapli) (Special to the "Evening Post.'")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

The view that a slowing up of work and substantially increased costs in the building industry will result from the introduction of a 40-hour week, was expressed by Mr. James Fletcher, j managing director of the Fletcher Construction Company. Ltd., which has the contract for the ered-ion o/. the Dunedm Post Office. He said there was no question that one of the industries which would be brought under the new legislation would be the building trade. Unquestionably it would mean a general slowing-up of building operations. There was a scarcity of skilled labour at present, more particularly among bricklayers and joiners.

One of the greatest-problems facing those engaged in the building industry, he said, was .that of apprenticeship. Some radical changes were required to increase the facilities for the. training of boys. In. the last four years only about 20 had been trained in the industry over the whole of the Dominion, whereas in normal times there would have been hundreds. That, combined with the retirement of men who had passed an age when they were fit for work, had created a shortage of skilled men. It was certain that the application of the 40-hour week to the industry, as well as to those industries from which its supplies were drawn, would result in a substantial increase in the cost of building.

Another builder said that the introduction of a 40-hour week must put up the cost of building. Wages would increase 10 per cent, and that would apply not only to builders' employees but to sawmilling and cement workers as well. Although some of the materials would not increase in price all New Zealand materials would go up. He could no.t give an accurate estimate as to how' much building costs would be increased, as there was also the possibility of a change in the wage rates of building trade workers, but he thought it quite possible that the cost would be increased in the near future by at least 8 per cent. He agreed that the 40-hour week "must come in. the building industry. Its introduction was not opposed by building contractors, with the exception, of those builders who were committed to long-term contracts.

He recalled that before the introduction of machinery into-drain laying 125 men had been required for a job that now could take only 25 men. The 40----hour week would do something to absorb men who. had been ousted by machinery, but. he believed that even shorter working hours would have to be instituted before a proper balance could be obtained.