APPRENTICES’ ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 March 1926, Page 8

APPRENTICES’ ACT

REPLIES TO CRITICISM. The Minister of Labour (Hon. J. G. Anderson) has made -the following reply to statements in a telegram from Auckland, regarding the working of the Apprentices Act: — “I have seen the statement purporting to have been made by the secretary of the Auckland Employers’ Association to the effect that a large number of boys who left school at the end of last year are unable to obtain work in the skilled trades, notwithstanding that employers are willing and anxious to take them. Mr. Wright proceeds to blame the Apprentices Act for the difficulty. Unless Mr. Wright is wrongly reported, he is under some misapprehension. The Act does not fix the proportion of apprentices, which is left to the Court of Arbitration. I understand that in some cases the proportion that has been fixed by the Court has been agreed upon by the Apprenticeship Committees, which comprise representatives of the employers and workers concerned in each case. Where any difficulty, such as is mentioned by Mr Wright, occurs, any of the parties concerned should apply to the Court of Arbitration for an amendment of the order fixing the proportion of apprentices. Amendments of orders relating to the proportion of apprentices have recently been made in this direction.

“The Apprentices Act of 1923 improved matters,, very greatly. . Prior to its becoming law the proportion of apprentices in each trade, together with their wages and other conditions of employment was generally provided for in awards of the Court.. The question of apprenticeships was thought sufficiently important to warrant a separate Act being passed, so that special attention could be given to the important questions of the training of apprentices and to their welfare generally. “Under the new law the Court may by drder, outside of an award, apportion the number of apprentices in any trade in a district. It may ?and generallv does —take the advice of Apprenticeship Committees in different localities, but it has full power itself to deal with the matters before it. The Act provides means designed to ensure that apprentices shall be taught their tarde in a district. It may—and genorder that any employer who it believes has not the facilities for teaching apprentices shall not be allowed to employ them, while it may allow 7 other employers who can teach them properly to have more than the average qu®ta. “It will thus be seen that as stated Act, however, lies largely i-n the hands of the committees, to which most of the powers under the Act are delegated by the Court, subject to the right of appeal to the Court by any person affected. Unless the parties and the committees work together for the public interest, and in future interests of their respective trades, unselfishly placing those interests above every other consideration, the Act cannot prove successful. The duty of employers in this respect was stressed by several representative employers in important industries when the Act was under consideration. Some of these employers urged* that amongst the moral obligations of employers was the duty of undertaking the training of a sufficient number of apprentices to provide the requisite tradesmen of the future. Power is therefore given in. the Act to the Court when it thinks fit to call upon the employers in any trade to undertake to teach a certain number of apprentices.

It will thus be seen that as stated the Act is a great improvement upon the previous law. It was compiled by experienced men representing employers, employees and the Labour and Education Departments, after much consultation with interested people in practically every skilled trade in New Zealand. In fact, the Bill was unanimously agreed to by these repreesntatives at a conference held in Wellington. “There has always been a surplus of boys eager to take up engineering and electrical work. . Three years ago it was stated in evidence before those who were considering the measure that there were four applications from boys for apprenticeships for every one required in both the engineering and electrical trades, while at the time mentioned it was stated that Sufficient boys could not be obtained for carpentering, plastering, bricklaying and a number of other trades, most of which, as everybody knew, were paying good wages, considerably above award rates, with every prospect of constant employment, and in which it would ultimately be easy for any worker of ability to commence business on his own account. In times of depression engineers and electrical workers are hard to place in employment, while tradesmen in other and less popular branches of industry are for the most part fully employed. Such factors are these are no doubt taken into account by the Court when fixing the proportion of apprentices.”