THE NEW UNIONISM.

Evening Star, Issue 11676, 7 February 1902, Page 2

THE NEW UNIONISM.

No 6. < THE SHEFFIELD TRADES. THE QUESTION ~OF APPRENTICES. ! GERMAN CUTLERY DISPLACES i BRITISH. AMERICA’S UP-TODATE METHODS. After reviewing in general terms the outlook for those trades which are closely associated with Sheffield, ‘ The Times ’ correspondent goes on to show what is the actual position of affairs in some of the more representative 'trades; and as a type of the trade unions concerned instances the Britannia-metal Smiths’ Provident Society. Idic union is said "to have 'only between 300 and 400 members, and it is in the bands of this, number of men that it seeks to keep the Britannia-tnetal smiths’ trad© of Sheffield. According to the employers the trade is seriously under-handed, and there ere not enough men to do the business. Foreign competition has made serious inroads into the industry; yet if a sudden influx of orders came to hand there would not be enough workers to execute them. Tlow the men’s society seeks to limit the number of hands in the trade is shown by the following extracts from its rules in reference to apprentices; '■ Wo journeyman shall take an apprentice. except such be bis own or a journeyman’? son, who must, be under seventeen years of age, but he cannot have an apprentice in addition to his own son or sons. No man shall take a lad to work with him until be’ is himself twenty-five years of age.” “No master shall have metre than one Hpprentice at one time; if two or more partners they can have one each; and for limited companies (sic), for the first ten men or fractional part thereof, one boy; from eleven to tweniy-five men, two boys; and so raising one boy to every additional fifteen men.” Hut it would seem that this latter rule was considered ton gencrons; for in 1892 the right of employers to have apprentices was suspended for five years, and in 1897 the suspension was renewed for another five years. The result, has been to impose on the employers a great injustice, especially in view of the insufficiency of labor, while men have to be employed, at men’s wages, tn do odd jobs about, the works which otherwise would be done by boys. It is probable that the master metal smiths will be reduced to the necessity either of fighting the point with the union or of relinquishing the i rade and leaving it entirely in the band.* of their German rivals. Here are some other of the rules of the Britanniamcial Smiths’ Provident Society, further -bowing lbo lines on which it is concloro'd :—• ’ Any man engaging himself to work at a manufactory where there is a dispute, and vJo-dug to leave when requested by a depui, fmm the. Committee, or hiring hims' t :-n that he cannot leave, shall be fined PA and shall be compelled to pay the ■ ho',, sum. as well as any arrears of contribution. before he is allowed to work at a-.v iir our places (sic). No man shall be rl’nwed to hire himself to any employer on aiiv pretence whatever.” ■ Thai no member shall sign any docu;nr;;: dmri.me.ntal to our rules.” Any man making a- new article must, have it' priced by the whole of the men in ih- fu-tory, and not by himself, under a pi r>,i!t v of £l. ;md the price set by him will not ha acknowledger!.” “ Members seeking work must first see th" secretary and ascertain if there are any pl nas where men are prohibited from going, and any member applying for a situation, ;is',:erta'.n.mg ijhiij information, or ing contrary to the secretary’s instructions in the case! shall be fined 2s 6d, and any m-mb; r going to work at a new situation wishout first obtaining from the secretary |o- clearance card shall also be fined 2s hi. ; lie can I to be given to the factory -■idleeto:. who shall ask for it. Clearance rani, ran onlv be obtained by members ■.vim are rh-ar on the bonks.” To be " -Icar on the books” means that a’! ~ ;d> i ioiions to the union have been iid no lo date. in ,i;c silver and electro-plate trades— I i... !k ci vo-plate on German silver, as d: li '-i [min clcdro-plate on Britanniaim : d ; here are the same attempts by the in rd rnion ro limit the. number of apprenii, e.-, and, though the trade has not been redm-fd m the same small proportions as tin Hriianuia-metal trade, there is a disliro ; shortage of men. It is declared that of entree dishes, trays, and other articles whi-li require careful hammering, 30 per ,oa,. more could be produced in Sheffield if roly there were enough skilled hamin.iers to do the work; and, as it happens, , tlie work is of a kind where machinery would be of little avail. THE CUTLERY TRADES. There are various branches in the cutlery trades, which comprise pen-knives, pocket or jack knives (including daggers, etc.), m i.-s.oi :■, razors, and table cutlery, the men iu each branch having their separate unions, and these, generally speaking, accept the same policy of making separate terms with individual "masters, restricting the labor supply, and so on. The scissors branch t-.ptcially is a typical instance of the failure of ;i nodi- to grow. At one time Sheffield oi'iipir-d a [pe-eminent position for its cmciii .ll Ivif of scissors; but the trade be■fiii mi decline in 1875, partly owing to a id»;t;,!itiid advance of prices, and partly bn I Vi. i,f an unwillingness to adopt new m.ihoA. In the early days of the Shefd i i 11 ado scissors were produced there by hj o ! iurging from a rod of steel, and the outpiu 'herefore was limited to the amount of 'via.k done by the hand-forgers, who [i .imd a very close union indeed. At th-ii time there was no possibility of getti;;u ibe scissors except as forged'hy trade uidoii workers at trade union prices. But the (Arman manufacturers adopted the system of casting scissors, and they followed ihio up by stamping them, producing so cheap an article that they captured the British colonies—which formerly had their scissm.« entirely from Sheffield—and Ob--I,aim'd a firm bold on the English market as well. Yet whenever efforts were made to introduce stamping into the Sheffield scissors trade in place of forging, the grinders’ union refused to make any concessions in price on having placed in their hand-- an article they could finish with less trouble than before. Consequently the Sheffield manufacturer found there would not be a sufficient saving to justify his putting down stamping machinery, and he has had to be content to see the trade drift more and more into the bands of the Germans. ft is now said to be dying out in Sheffield. Yet there are not enough men to do rv"n the work that there is, for the number of scissors makers has substantially decreased, and is much below actual requirements. A grinder may not take an, apprentice until he himself is twenty-eight, and then the youth he takes must be the son of a grinder. So restricted is the supply of labor that sometimes when the employers are in want of extra hands they jmrdly know which way to turn. Then in the matter of wages the men send in word when they want more, and the employers must either concede the advance or prepare for a strike. s Almost the same remarks as those made concerning scissors apply also to razors. AMERICAN RIVALRY. In the saw trade matters am no brighter. The making of these was coo of the lea, ding industries in Sheffield thirty or forty year* ago. To-day the condition of the trade is deplorable. It ha* been almost completely captured by the manufacturers in the United States. ’They were the firefc to put down machine* for both grinding and finishing, and while at first some ol the manufacturers on this side were too slow to see how their Transatlantic competitors were going ahead, others who did see, and who sought to introduce similar machinery here, found it bitterly opposed by the men’s unions. Such opposition is no longer offered ; but in the meantime the American makers have got so firm a hold on the world’s markets that the Sheffield makers cannot hope to overtake them. In the United State* standardised sines are turned out by machinery in enormous quantities, and they are sold at such rate* that the home consumer* forego their deaire for special sixes, which the American manufacturers decline to produce, and th* surplus is sent to England, Canada, or elsei when to. be sold- at cost little

more.' The ShtiS&d lav atoafactareai axe (Straggling to keep *1 much af tbs t»de a* they can, and foe tbi Ibnitod number of mhn available thfee li Whit Iriaftghi bat inMtntich as the men, thltough tiwr down, wtnt to keep that work to tfafirawdrei, and dhmpprove of apprentices, it Wtidd took as if tht Industry cfciinot expect to outlive the preseht workers. The edge tool trade is practfcally hebless against foreign competition. In America the work on a tool is divided, and therefore a quicker, cheeper, and better article is turned out. In Sheffield the edge tool grinders insist on one moo doing each class of work Mi the same tool. It be unfair, they say, for one person to do all the hard part and another the easy. Therefore the employer must, in consequence* have a grinding-wheel twice as tosge as would otherwise be sufficient; that more space is taken up. for the factory, and consequently greater expense incurred; mid that the work turned oat costs more and is not so well done ore considerltttofae that do not concern the men’s union. So the American makers get & still better chance than they would otherwise have, even under their surplus system, to come here and secure a nig slice of the trade. On the Continent, too, the French have captured most of the markets with carpenters’ tools which have a much finer finish than the Sheffield mokes; though snch, it is declared, would not be the case if the Sheffield workers would only follow the American and the French practice, and- leave the polishing to be done hy atm working apart from the grinding. Still another of the “lighter” Sheffield industries into which the Americans have made serious inroads is that of file-makjng, and here again the cause is due to the good use to which they have put machinery. There is not much trade union restriction among the machine file-cutters, whose society is of very little account {though there is plenty of strong unionism among the file forgers and grinders), and the fact that the English workers of such machines do not give the same intensity of application to them that the American operatives do is attributed rather to a lack of ambition on their part, and to aspirit of contentment which prompts them to be satisfied with the wages they get—each wages ranging from 50s to £3* a week—rather than to try to earn more by working harder. But the comparative prosperity which gives them this spirit of contentment is due solely to the use of that machinery to which they, in their younger days, or their fathers before them, strongly objected; while but for the introduction of file-cutting machines the whole industry would by this Hm f have been swept away from Sheffield altogether. The conclusion of the whole matter is, from the employers’ standpoint; Greater use of machinery, and that (he intelligent men in the trades take a more active part in the management of. their own unions. •To be continued.)