The Grey River Argus MONDAY, May 3rd, 1937. THE YOUNG WORKER.

Grey River Argus, 3 May 1937, Page 4

The Grey River Argus MONDAY, May 3rd, 1937. THE YOUNG WORKER.

That some youths are just now awkwardly placed in relation to industry is a thing* certain people profess to lament very greatly. It is said by Chambers of Commerce and others who claim to represent employers that from the age of IS upwards there are many desirous of apprenticeship who cannot find masters because the rates of pay have been altered by the present Government. The sincerity of much of this talk may be ques tioned. When the last Government deliberately absolved employers from obligations they legally had to enable apprentices to complete' their training, no Chamber of Commerce and even no secondary or technical school spokesman had any complaint to make./ When, however, legislation came in recognising rights which reasonably accrue with age to a worker, there were plenty of complaints. It is an undeniable fact that the present Government found only about 3,500 apprentices in skilled trades when they 'took office, whereas there = were over ten thousand five years' before. If therefore, apprenticeship has been undermined, there is no doubt as to whose legislation is to blame. Nor is there any doubt that the present complainants acquiesced in that legislation. As a matter of justice, apprenticeship has never been what 'it should be in this country. An employer’s obligation should not normally be considered at an end as soon as apprenticeship ends. The journeyman should have some guarantee that he then, as a reward for learning the trade is not going to be handed the sack. Time was when the journeymen had as good a right to remain with the master as the master had to share with other masters in the division of available orders or work. It was only because monopolistic or greedy employing influences prevailed that the rights of apprentices and journeymen were destroyed at the dawn of modern industrialism. Previously the journeyman automatically became an employer in his turn. But ’ the desideratum with many now'’ complaining in this country is far less social justice than cheaper labour. The acting-Miaister of Labour, however, has emphasised that there is no wages bar to the apprenticing of youths of 18 or 19 years. This Government has expressly legislated to enable youths of this age or over to be apprenticed in order that, they may learn trades under any conditions which the Minister of Labour thinks fit. As the present 3,500 apprentices are

mostly in their fourth and fifth years, and have almost completed their there is one thing standing out very plainly indeed. Employers are manifestly not engaging as apprentices these youths above the usual entry age, and, in fact, are engaging few apprentices of any age at all. Hence the suspicion to which the professed sympathy for the older youths gives rise. Those youths, are not only older, but stronger and more intelligent than younger ones, and if their labour could be enlisted at the same low remuneration as youths of sixteen receive, the employers would be on a lovely wicket! The employ ers in general are not training workers in numbers adequate to meet the industrial needs of the country. It is notorious that certain ' city interests, very antiLabour ‘in expression, conduct their industries almost entirely ■without apprentices, because ot a. desire to get the maximum output from machinery. Industrial unions are competent to negotiate with organisations ot erm ployers for apprenticeship orders where there is no award or agreement. School teachers have stat-

ed that improved wages tend to take youths into industry too earlv, and it is also stated that a proportion are not apprenticed The probability in many such cases is that their homes arc in need of their earnings, and that nothing except a legal prohibition would prevent their taking the first opportunity, to earn

something. It is certainly desirable that the school education or youths should be as adequate as it is possible to make it, but in the case of needy families tins will never be assured until there is some form of family endowment to justify a higher schoolleaving age. That is, however another matter. As for youths, n lion of the apprenticeship question is one as to -which more lie» within the power of employers generally than within that of others.