LABOUR CONTROL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21840, 10 October 1945, Page 5

LABOUR CONTROL

REMOVAL DESIRED AUSTRALIAN TRADES SHORTAGES APPARENT (Special Australian Correspondent.) (10 am ) SYDNEY, Oct. 10. On every hand the Australians encounter sharp reminders in the form of transport difficulties and various shortages that this country is still very far from normality. For years Australia has been cutting civilian consumption to a minimum, stripoing industry of manpower and ships of their stocks, allowing our farms, our factories and our transport to deteriorate through lack of maintenance and leaving a tremendous deficiency in house building to be overtaken. The people are becoming all too familial with the frustration of being unable to find the goods they need. Delivery Resumption Delayed The Federal Government has announced that restrictions on all household deliveries will be lifted from the beginning of next month but these deliveries are not likely to be made for some time. The secretary of the Meat and Allied Trades’ Federation stated that meat deliveries to homes will be almost impossible for six months. He said that more than 1000 metropolitan butchers had no vehicles and were short of labour. The immediate freeing of 10,000 undertakings which are still protected under the man-power regulations was favoured by representatives of employers and employees who conferred with the Minister of Labour and National Service, Mr. E. J. Holloway, in Melbourne yesterday. The conference expressed the view that man-power protection should be removed so that normal employment relations would again exist in all enterprises. The general feeling was that stability in industry would thus be quickly restored. Trade union circles, however, do not consider the smooth transition to peace-time employment is likely while demands for a 40-hour week and a more liberal basic wage remains unsatisfied. Maximum Production Needed The Sydney Morning Herald says that trade union leaders, while urging a shorter working week and higher rates of pay, should impress upon their followers no less fervently that only by achieving the maximum production of goods and services can the real content of the basic wage be restored and living standards improved. In Australia new methods and modern equipment often find their most bitter opponents in the ranks of trade unionism. , „ , The chairman of the Coal Board of Inquiry recently pointed out that because the miners had successfully resisted the use of modern machinery the public had to pay higher prices. Coal is an extreme example of an industry which is being ruined by go slow and opposition to labour-saving devices, but the same tendencies can be seen to a lesser .extent throughout Australia and they do incalculable harm to the well-being of the entire people.