GOODWILL IN INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19236, 27 January 1926, Page 10

GOODWILL IN INDUSTRY.

The reversion to the six-days week in the Auckland clothing trade is apparently an illustration of the manner in which efforts to maintain harmonious relations between employers and their staffs are thwarted by excessive zeal on the part of union officials. The five-days week, introduced as a war emergency measure, was continued at the request of the workers, and experience has shown that while the arrangement rested upon a basis of friendly agreement it was satisfactory to both parties. Such a concession of additional leisure to the workers, with the reciprocal undertaking that a full week's work would be performed within the shorter period, had no need for other sanction for its permanence than the preservation of the spirit in which it was arranged, and apparently, so long as its unwritten terms were observed by both parties, there would not have been any question of terminating it. By the application of the Factory Act's limitation of the length of each working day, the women and the girls in the industry gained a further advantage. Thus by common efforts to establish their relations on a foundation of goodwill, vthe trade was able to conduct its operations well within the minimum regulations of award and statute. The experiment has, however, been wrecked by a foolish attempt, on the part of those appointed to watch over the interests of union workers, to compel the industry to grant what it has hitherto willingly conceded. Those who were responsible for this demand can now see the consequences of their indiscretion, and they and others would be well advised to meditate upon the episode. Their action is expressive of that mischievous attitude of suspicion which is the underlying cause of all industrial friction, and of the short-sighted doctrine that the interests of the worker can only be advanced by constantly fighting for advantages and consolidating every gain made by such methods. Until the executive actions of trades unionism are brought into harmony with the general desire for the establishment of goodwill as the guiding principle in industrial relations, such experiments as the livedays week will have small prospect of success.