A PLUMBER'S COMPLAINT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 March 1922, Page 3

A PLUMBER'S COMPLAINT.

IMMIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

A plumber recently complained in Auckland that he had been induced to leave England in December last for the Dominion, with a written undertaking from the New Zealand immigration officer in London ,fchat work would be found for him on h^ arrival in New Zealand in the Railway Department as one of 25 plumbers advertised for by the department in the Home papers, and that on his arrival last month he found himself workless owing to a big retrenchment scheme put into operation by the Government, while he was en route to the Dominion. Commenting on this complaint, the writer of "Labour Notes*' in the Auckland Star says: "This week the Auckland ( office of the Labour Department has unconsciously corroborated the existence of this system of attracting.labour to our shores, by a letter to the union relating to an alleged breach of the plumbers' award, in the engagement of a non-unionist by an Auckland employer. In explanation it must be borne in mind that" the provisions of the Auckland plumbers' award require that all labour must be engaged through the union office. In the explanation furnished by the department to the union it is stated that the employer was surprised to learn that the man in question had not joined the union, as in engaging him it was pointed out that it was necessary for'him to become a member, and this the worker undertook to do, being a union, ist in the Old Country. . The employer mentioned "that this man was one of a number of plumbers assisted to New Zealand by the Government to relieve the shortage of this class of labour, and he (the employer) had promised to employ a man if brought out. He therefore felt bound to do so." At the present time there are registered plumbers on the book of the local union requiring employment, and this position is not peculiar to this union, but is shared by other skilled trades in the city. Especially is this the case with the engineering trades union, which has well ov«r a hundred members out of work at the present time, many of whom are in mceipt of out-of-work benefit from the union funds."