GAS FITTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 21524, 23 September 1933, Page 10

GAS FITTINGS

REPRESENTATIONS OF PLUMBERS’ UNION Consideration has been giveu_ to a request submitted by representatives or the Plumbers’ Union that the gas department should in future refrain from doing any gas-fitting work beyond the meter (reports the Gas Committee of the City Council). The committee reports that the department has always done a limited amount of fitting for its consumers when requested to do so, and in actual practice it has been found that the department would be placed in a most disadvantageous position if it were not prepared to meet such requests. It is an established custom with gas undertakings the world over to conduct fitting work as an essential feature of their gas sales organisation, and that has been the established policy with the city gasworks for at least twenty-five years. The department does practically the whole of the canvassing for consumers for gas and gas apparatus, and must be prepared to quote for fittings also in cases where consumers so require. The aggregate value of such-work is, however, comparatively small, as the department does not cater specially for it. In the case of new properties the gas-fitting work is invariably left entirely to the plumbers, although the preliminary canvassing work is done in almost every case by the department. The committee is therefore of the opinion that the request, if acceded to, would be a retrograde step, and injurious to the best interests of the department and its consumers, and cannot therefore recommend that the present long-established policy be departed from. The department is, on the other hand, desirous of catering in every possible way for the plumbers, and lias given, and will continue to give, them all" the assistance possible in furthering inquiries in connection with gas-fitting work.