CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 2, 4 January 1943, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

FUTURE TRADESMEN

(To the Editor.) Sir, —May 1 congratulate your correspondent, John E. Hunt, on his timely reference to the problem of the future tradesmen of this country. Also to yourself for your sub-leader pn the same question. Mr. Hunt is correct when he says that parents nowadays are reluctant, for economic reasons, to apprentice their boys to a trade at the relatively low rates of remuneration available. Any person interested in the financial future of New Zealand must be perturbed at the present trend. Mr. Hunt is also correct when he says that "the proper place to learn a skilled trade is in the factory or workshop." The present system of partially training men is not sufficient and can only, result in producing a body of semi-skilled workers inadequate for the industrial tasks of the future. Certainly these trainees can be of value providing they are leavened with sufficient fully-qualified tradesmen to ensure that there can be a proper and efficient division of work. As things are going, however, there will not be enough fully-quali- | fied men available to provide an adequate leaven. What then is the solution? I agree that the present Apprenticeship Act requires remodelling and improving, but the Act itself is not the cause of the trouble. The cause of the [ dearth of apprentices lies in the cold, I hard, economic fact that skilled tradesJ men do not receive sufficiently attractive remuneration for their skill and services. Whether we like it or not, we are living in a competitive society where the goods that produce the highest return are the goods that are the most attractive to produce. Once upon a time tradesmen received relatively good remuneration, but that is not the position today, and people are not fools. Nor, unfortunately, are I they so imbued with public spirit that they think only of where their children can serve best. They think in terms of economic and financial security, and people are prepared to I make great sacrifices to have their j children trained in the professions because the professions are well paid. So it used to be with the trades in the past when tradesmen were relatively well paid also. But that is past. A fully-qualified tradesman today receives, under Arbitration Court awards, 2s 9d per hour .or £5 10s per week, from which expensive tools have to be bought and maintained. Is it any wonder that parents are not eager to bind their sons for at least five years at low wages, to a trade that will eventually return him a remuneration only a little more than an unskilled worker, and considerably less in many cases. And it must be remembered that the apprenticeship involves not only practical work but theoretical study and the necessity to qualify. Admittedly, at present most employers are paying tradesmen more than award rates, but this does not apply in the Government services. In the railway service, which possesses the best facilities for training apprentices in New Zealand, the highest rate that a fully-qualified tradesman can receive is the bare minimum award rate of 2s 9d per hour. If an apprentice fails to obtain the necessary percentage of marks in his examinations he receives less than this amount on completion of his time. It is this policy on the part of the Government that is acting as an obstacle to obtaining sufficient future tradesmen for the industrial welfare of the country, and until it is altered there is little likelihood of any improvement in the present trend.—l am, etc., T. F. GEBBIE, General Secretary Railway Tradesmen's Association.