NO SATURDAY WORK

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 12 April 1920, Page 2

NO SATURDAY WORK

EMPLOYERS' RESISTANCE,

SYDNEY, March 30.. There is every probability now that a serious fight will develop in New South Wales on the question of the elimination of Saturday work—or, rather, by the reduction of working hours to 44 per week, by cutting out Saturday work. The distinction ought to be generally noted, because the majority of employers are not opposedl to cutting out the irritating' Saturday morning run. if the work,, done in those four hours, is added to the work done on the other five days.

This No-Saturday-Work movement hsa been growing rapidly lately— the ribald say that New Ssrath Wales stands for the slogan—and has now attained serious proportions. It has affected all the unions concerned in the iron and building trades, and the building trade employees generally have declared war. The employers have taken up the challenge, and the trouble is likely to commence in real earnest as from lOfch April.

The unions which, in the city, refused to work on Saturday last, and crowded into their halls to encourage each other to be firm and ruthless, included the bricklayers, painters, slaters, decorators, carpenters, and builders' laborers. The united laborers, the plasterers, and the stonemasons have refused to join the movement; and the plumbers, for the moment, are "on the fence." The No-Saturday Workers offer their employers no concessions. They* simply say that they will not work on Saturdays, but they demand that they be paid as if they did. They are, as a matter of simple fact, in the hands of a gang of extremists in the Trades Hall, and the philosophy of these men is such that they would gladly -lead, vthe deluded unionists into an unsuccessful strike. The men then, beaten, dispirited, and depressed, would the more readily absorb the revolutionary doctrine. Meanwhile, the employers are getting ready for a fight, and the employers' organisations generally are swinging in behind them. The men who did not work on Saturday will not be paid. The coming Saturday is .Easter Saturday, and would not, in any event, be a working day. But the following Saturday, April 10th, will tost the strength of the extremists. The employers will probably take drastic action in the direction of dismissing those men who do not present themselves on Saturdays. This mi?.ht not work if the men were absolutely solid; but they are not. Large numbers of the more skilled and intelligent classes have refused to obey the union bos«w. If the employers are firm and just, and do nothing foolish or weak, they are almost certain to "scotch" this insidious and indefensible movement, which comeis at the worst possible time' in the country's history.