METAL WORKERS

Evening Star, Issue 23725, 5 November 1940, Page 11

METAL WORKERS

SURVEY OF APPRENTICESHIP EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH BULLETIN The position of apprentices to the metal -working industry in the Dunedin district, and the problems of their status are reviewed by Mr T. Conly, in the latest bulletin of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. The survey is limited to the occupations generally embraced by the term “ engineering trades,” and it docs not attempt to cover the callings followed by electrical workers, plumbers, canister makers, and so forth; but Mr Conlv’s exhaustive inquiry has furnished material of much interest. Criticism is made of the amount of obsolete plant, the lack of organisation amongst employers, save for the purpose of regulating industrial relationship with their workmen, and the lack of comforts and amenities usually found in the general run of factories. On the other hand is recorded the strong craftsman’s fellowship existing among workmen and masters, and the pride of the men in their work. The training problem is reviewed at length, and a suggestion considered that apprenticeship, for the good of industry and the employer, should be served in more than one workshop. This was thought to be impracticable by those most affected. Mr Conly finds _ that apprenticeship is a social and civic responsibility to the rising generation of bovs. To the boy, it gives a skilled trade" for which there is a demand all over the world, at the same time developing qualities of resourcefulness and self-confidence, ability of working and of supervision, and the independence and self-respect which comes from a realisation of his own useful place in society. Training boys in the master’s shop reduces the labour turnover. “ Failure to train an apprentice properly is a breach of faith; and it may result in the turning out of a spoiled man who becomes a menace to the wage and output standards of the trade.” continues the review. “ Everyone who makes a living in this country, cither as employer or workman, should fight against the development of a situation in which New Zealanders would be labourers to skilled tradesmen imported from overseas to staff our workshops.

“ It should be noted that both employers and workmen sometimes pointed out that the metal trades are not easy ways of life, in addition to demanding physical exertions, they place on the trademan and apprentice burdens of care and responsibility that, courageously shouldered, produce real men with moral fibre as well as craftsman’s parts.” An appendix deals with schedules of time which are suggested as a basis for the distribution of work for apprentices to a number of trades included in the survey.