MILLION HOURS LOST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 76, 26 September 1942, Page 8

MILLION HOURS LOST

MR. MCARA'S COMMENT

"The reply of the Commissioner of Defence Construction does not refute my statement of considerable loss of time due to wet weather on defence building work," said Mr. McAra today. The Commissioner's main objection seemed to be to the estimate that the loss amounted to 1,080,000 hours, but.

said Mr. McAra, the evidence to support that statement was supplied by the Commissioner himself when he had advised him (Mr. McAra) and others that over £100,000 had been involved in making up the wages to the guaranteed minimum of £5 5s in the first three months, in the main because of wet weather. The working week was of 54 hours, but the minimum guarantee provided an equivalent of only 32 hours for tradesmen, or, over all sections of workers, say, an average of 33 hours. The £100.000 was the amount necessary to make up the equivalent of 32 to 33 hours (any time lost over this not being paid for); in other words, every worker who received the minimum must have lost at least 21 or 22 hours' work in that week.

■v NOT OVER-ESTIMATED.

The estimate of 1.080,000 hours lost, staggering though it was, was not an over-estimation, said Mr. McAra, but the real problem was to ensure that such wastage was avoided. "I repeat," he said, "that the building workers' objective is to ensure that every hour of the working week is fully utilised on essential construction. That there are difficulties is not denied, but effective co-ordination can eliminate a very considerable amount of this serious economic loss." He cited as an instance nearby jobs, one waiting for roofing material and the other at the foundation stage, but with roofing material on the site, and both brought to a stop, though a com-mon-sense use ol material would have enabled both gangs to have worked and would have speeded up construction. There had been numerous instances of that kind, and the tendencies which still existed to separate projects into comparatively isolated units, rather than to allow an appreciation that each unit was part of the general programme, were main hindrances to closer co-ordination. Possibilities for further utilising labour during wet weather existed in the temporary diversion of defence workers to uncompleted housing and other essential jobs. Another- factor which offered more efficiency was the movement for production committees, on which both workers and employers could get together on the jobs to discuss problems of production.