LABOUR WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6488, 7 April 1908, Page 3

LABOUR WAR

TROUBLES IN NORTH BRITAIN. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, February 21, Unless the conference now being held between the employers and the representatives of the trades unions connected with the shipbuilding industry of the north-east coast of England results in an amicable settlement of the disputes between employers and employed we are face to face with what must bo a most disastrous war between capital and Labour. The joiners and shipwrights, numbering some 4000 men, have been on strike for the past mouth against a reduction of wages, and now the engineers have decided that sooner than submit to a reduction of per cent, on piece rates, and Is a week reduction in time wages they will also cease work forthwith. Tho men who have come to this decision are members of the Amalgamated {Society o.f Engineers, the United .Machine Workers' Society, and. the Steam Engine Makers' Association. They comprise a very large priori ion of the men employed in the engineering shops on the north-east coast, and when they Lay down their tools the masters have only two courses open to them: they must either “cave in" or "close down," ‘ In the Latter ©vent of course all the other trades engaged in the engineering shops—there are twenty-two altogether—will be thrown out of employment. THE FINANCIAL ASPECT. If the quarrel results in a lock-out no less than 70,000 will be affected., and in event of the industrial war spreading to this extent the weekly losses to the men will average out at something like .£140,000. This figure ig. arrived at on the following estimates of , the men variously employed in connection with tho shipbuilding industry;

Even at the present time the distress in Sunderland and other adjacent towns is very acute Giving to the recent depression in the shipbuilding and general engineering trades. In normal times the shipbuilding and engineering yards of the north-east coast employ about 145,000 men, but of late at least a third of these have been either out of work or doing short time. In Sunderland alone there are over 12,000 men walking the streets workless apart from strikers, and the local workhouse contains 500 more m'mates than it did at tho same time last year, the number fto-day being over 1300. In South Shields, Tynemouth, and Newcastle, the situation, though not so bad as at Sunderland, is bad enough to cause grave concern, and if the threatened lock-out takes place the position will be desperate indeed, for of the men affected not more than 50 per cent, will be in receipt of strike pay and must depend on private charity and the rates for daily bread for themselves and their families. And tho spending capacity of the remainder will be reduced to about one-third of the normal, which will mean ruin for hundreds of tradesmen in the affected district if the trouble last any length of time.

Wages Strike pay 14,000 engineers .620,200 £14.000 16.000 minor industries .£24.000 £13,000 4000 shipwrights 067,750 £2,500 36,000 men, painters. plumbers, gas workers, braziers, labourers, etc., at rough average wag© of 25s £45,000 £9,000 Total weekly loss to men. £138,450.