THE BOOT INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 87, 9 October 1937, Page 15

THE BOOT INDUSTRY

SHORT TIME WORKED

MEMBER TAKEN TO TASK

(By Telegraph— Association.) AUCKLAND, October 8.

Further evidence of the depressed state of the footwear manufacturing industry at Auckland through the flood of importations was afforded when Bridgens and Company, Ltd., probably the largest firm of footwear manufacturers in the Dominion, for the first time in its history, notified its employees that short time would have to be worked. It gave this notification to 60 of its 300 hands, and it is said that, up to today, it was the only factory at Auckland that had managed to keep employees engaged on full time, or which had not dismissed hands for lack of work. It is claimed by a number of Auckland factories that the depressed state of the industry, so far as Auckland is concerned, is the worst they have experienced since the war. Many factories, to keep hands employed, are building up stocks, a practice they describe as uneconomic. Arising out of a broadcast from Parliament on Thursday evening, Mr. H. W. Shove, chairman of the Auckland group of the New Zealand Footwear Manufacturers' Association, sent the following telegram to Mr. W. T. Anderton, M.P.:—"Did you state in the House that the boot trade at Auckland is busy and extra hands are being engaged? If so, I would appreciate the authority for this statement, which is absolutely incorrect. The matter is urgent." Mr. Shove has received the following reply from Mr. Anderton: "My statement in Parliament referred to increased trade during the past two years. The Minister of Customs assures me that the present position is being investigated by the Government with a view to the issue of a policy statement within the next fortnight." "It seems incredible that Mr. Anderton did not make himself acquainted with the state of affairs in the bootmanufacturing industry at Auckland before he made a broadcast statement in Parliament stating that the industry in this city was busy," said Mr. C. A. Watts, secretary of the New Zealand Federation of Boot Trade Operatives. "The position in the boot trade at Auckland is 'that unemployment is rife," declared Mr. Watts. "Within the past eight weeks 400 hands have been : affected by short time, with a loss in wages of £2545. These are all adult workers. Four factories are reduced to making stock and one has closed down, involving 27 dismissals. 1 Altogether the state of the boot trade • at Auckland is pitiful."

Mr. Watts added that a factory which had probably the largest output in New Zealand had only been able to continue the employment of all its hands by creating stocks and had now announced that short time would ba worked from the next week. In all the circumstances the remarks made by Mr. Anderton were most unfortunate.