WAGES AND INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 17925, 22 March 1922, Page 4

WAGES AND INDUSTRY

BRITISH ENGINEERS. DISCUSSION IN COMMONS. Press Association—-By Telegraph—Copyright, LONDON, March 21. In tho course of the debate in the House of Commons on Mr Clynes’s motion to adjourn the House in tyrder to raise tho question of tho engineering lockout with the object of inducing the Government to take steps to terminate the dispute, Mr Robert Young (Labor) urged that they should not darken the debate with references to tho Soviet control of workshops. If some of tho engineers were Bolsheviks, tho employers and Parliament were responsible. Every promise mado had been repudiated. Tho natural objection to overtime was that thousands of engineers were unemployed. Mr Austin Hopkinson (Co.L.) said it was ludicrous for members of the Employers' Federation to claim managerial functions when they abrogated tho same by joining tho federation. Only employers like himself, who were outside the federation, could really control their own works. He did not think an Industrial Court could usefully decide tho question of overtime, which no employers wanted if it were avoidable. Dr T. J. Alacnamaxa (Minister of Labor), replying, said that he was profoundly disappointed that his efforts at mediation were unsuccessful. Since January there had been a reduction of 152.000 in tho number of unemployed, but there were still 1,792,000 without work. It was impossible to put the Industrial Courts Act into force while ballots were progressing in forty-seven trade unions. The unions themselves would have resented such intervention if tho employers had demanded it. Ho appealed to both sides to compose their differences.

Sir Allen Smith., chairman of the Managing Committee of the Engineering Employers’ Federation, eaid that the difficulty of the employers was that they bad to deal with seventy-two trade unions. If the unions conceded tho principle that tho employers had a right to manage their own factories, the employers would bo pleased to confer with the men regarding the manner in which, the managerial functions would operate. The employers did not want to smash the unions. Tho motion was negatived by 162 to 80.—A. and N.Z. Cable: