MUNITION WORK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23861, 11 January 1941, Page 11

MUNITION WORK

TRAINING OF MEN plan for classes AUCKLAND DISCUSSIONS Preliminary discussions with a view to starting the training of auxiliary workers in the engineering industry were opened yesterday in Auckland bv 1 V " ■ Nisbet, who has been appointed by the Government to organise the training of munition workers throughout the Dominion. He will confer on Monday with a group representative of footwear manufacturers on the details of a scheme to prepare male workers for this industry, and ho will later discuss proposals with representations of the workers' union. Already in Wellington classes in machine shop practice have been opened. They are attended by -10 trainees as mechanics and 15 as welders. Ihe engineering industry is now engaged on munitions manufacturing, and it , s anticipated that the present war effort will be substantially developed in the near future. This in turn will aecen.ie r P. resent shortage of skilled woikers. It is therefore regarded as imperative that further men should be trained. Enthusiasm in Wellington It was not pretended that skilled tradesmen can be turned out in a comparatively short course, Mr. Nisbet explained yesterday. The Wellington classes were started in November, fhe idea being to give the men a grounding m the fundamental use of tools. It would he ior the eventual employer to develop the training of the man according to his particular needs. Most of the men in the Wellington classes were married with children, and some had given up regular employment in order to quality in the engineering trade. A\ bile attending classes they are paid £'l Ids -Ul a week, and so keen are they that except lor tour days in the Christmas and New Year period classes were maintained. Organisation of Scheme '1 he anticipation is that courses will last for four months, although no definite time is fixed, but competent judges consider some of the men will be ready to be passed into the industry by the end of this month. They will be classified at the end of their course by a district council. There will be a Dominion organisation to administer the scheme, and the district councils will comprise representatives of the Labour Department, the Placement Service, the principal of the local technical school, and a representative of the employers of the particular industry affected and also of the union.