DAIRY FACTORY WORKERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19780, 29 October 1927, Page 14

DAIRY FACTORY WORKERS.

Sir, —Not content with making a mess of the marketing of dairy produce and losing thousands of pounds, the farmers are now out to make a loss at the manufacturing end by getting exemption from the Arbitration Act for the dairy industry. To try and lower the wages or impose any harder conditions than the men now work under is only courting disaster. The amount paid in wages in a properlyequipped and well-managed factory is approximately one-third of a penny per lb, or not 2 per cent, of the selling price of butter. So it looks more a? if the Act had been protecting this industry, as it costs others 50 per cent, and over to convert their raw material into a saleable article. When you consider that the butter we bay contains 16 per cent, of moisture or pure water, 6 per cent, of which is added during the working up of the butter, it seems that those interested are not content to get something for nothing, but want to sweat the workers into the bargain and cause industrial strife with heavy loss to both sides. Without an impartial Judge to fix wages and conditions of work an industry of this ?ize is sure to come to grief, so the farmers would be wise to let well alone and' not begrudge the workers the small percentage they get out of the over-rail. Looker-on,