THE ARBITRATION ACT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6625, 15 September 1908, Page 8

THE ARBITRATION ACT

DOMESTIC WORKERS DIFITCUIiTY OF REGISTRATION. According to evidence given before the 'Labour /.Sills Committee by Marianne Alien Tasker, secretary of the Wellington Domestic Workers’ Union, on the amending Conciliation and Arbitration Dill there was a difficulty regarding the registration of domestic workers. The union considered that the Act covered only a section—such as lodg-inghouse-koc] ers and people who keep domestic v'orkers and go into business. It was thought these girls were not kept for comfort purposes but for hire. It would bo useless to cover one section of domestic workers unless they could bind the whole. The evidence showed that an attempt had been made to obtain an. award. The union had called a meeting of employers, but were confronted by four lawyers, which, it is alleged, frightened them, and the thing collapsed. They actually thought they were going to the Court! Registration had been lost through ignorance. When the secretary returned from England she endeavoured to put new life into the union but was informed that they had no standing, that they did not come under the definition of “‘worker,” because domestic servants wore kept for comfort and convenience.

What fcho union desires is this: At present it has no legal standing without registration and is not able to go before the Conciliation Board or Arbitration Court to ask that the abuses under which domestic servants suffer .should bo remedied or alleviated. They wanted a definition inserted which covers domestic workers. ‘‘What we „ro doing/ 1 explained the secretary, “is not done in any aggressive spirit, but really with the desire to raise the status of tbo domestic worker so that domestic employment will bo more sought after in preference to employment in factories and • workshops.” They wanted the whole of those engaged in domestic service to be bound by the Act.

GO SLOW,” AND THE PREMIUM INTERESTING VIEWS BY EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. ' Nearly all the witnesses heard by the Labour Bills Committee, iu considering the amendment of the Arbitration” Act had something to say about the “needs and exertion wage” clause which was eventually struck out of the measure. The weight of their testimony 7 was against it, but there was a better balance of testimony in regard to the existence of the “ca* canny,” or “go slow” method of working said to bo practised in certain trades. THE PRESENT DIFFICULTY.

The ca’ canny principle was referred to by Mr Georgo T. Booth, one of the principals of a Christchurch firm of implement manufacturers. The Bill, lie pointed out, proposed to make striking illegal. “I do not wish to make any* sweeping assertion and say it is impossible that such provisions should ho effective” ho, continued; “they may or may not be effective in prei r onting strikes, but I would point out to tho Committee that workmen do not need to strike in order to gain their ends. They can put what pressure is necessary upon their employers to enforce their views, even to the extent, if they wish, of driving an employer out of business or into a lunatic asylum, by a method short of striking—a method which they know quite well and which they know how to uso quite well—the method of going slow, of applying what is called the ca’ canny principle to their work; and I cannot imagine how the Legislature is going to devise any set of enactments that will prevent this.” ITS REMEDY.

Of the “needs and exertion wage” clauses, Mr Booth suggested it was quite obvious that these clauses had been inserted in the Bill in recognition of the evil effects of the present eystem, and in the hope of counteracting them. “These clauses” ho said, “can hardly bo regarded as more than a mere suggestion, for reasons which I hope, to be able to make clear to you—a good suggestion, no doubt, but anyone who has had practical experience of the difficulty of instituting a progressive-wage system or premium plan in a factory will, recognise that the Bill proposes to put a duty upon the Arbitration Court which there is no earthly chance of its being able to carry out.” Speaking of his own firm's experience in attempting to run the premium system, Mr Booth said: Years ago we tried various plans—the piecework plan, the bonus system in various forms<—indeed, we still use the bonus system as applied to heads of departments—but for a good many years, practically since Mr Halsey, the originator of what is known as the premium plan, made his scheme public, I have been following up thia thing, and have been trying to get it introduced into our shop. I very soon found this, however, that unless the organisation of the shop itself —I mean the accounting organisation—the costing department—is brought up to a fairly high state of efficiency and exactitude, it was not possible to introduce a premium plan with any hope of satisfactory results; and I found also that unless the man in charge of the shop understood and sympathised with the system itself, you simply could not get it going. However, we were fortunate enough two and a half years ago to find a man who was familiar with the operation of the system, who was enthusiastically in favour of it, and who was prepared to assume the responsibility of putting it in force.

THE HRAOTICAL DIFFICULTY. “Now, to show you how difficult this is even in a little shop such ps our own where the operations are not particularly complicated,” Sir Booth proceeded, “I may tell you that we have been working at this thing for two and a half years, and up to tiie present time we have only got about half-way through, the shop. I asked the shop-manager the day before yesterday about how many rates he supposed ho had fixed up to the present, and I found that they ran somewhere in the neighbourhood of three thousand, I suppose we shall want fully double that number to cover all the operations in the shop, and wo shall want probably an average of from five to twenty new rates fixed every day. Now you can see how utterly absurd it is to think that the Arbitration Court is going to fix tho rates, .Wo should

want an Arbitration Court for every shop v, lie colony, and it would have to .sit incessantly xo provide for the day’s requirements. Thu nevertheless it is a matter of very groat gratification to rno to find those clauses embodied in this Bill, because in_a way it expresses Governmental sanction to a system which I believe may be made to yield very valuable results in stimulating industrial efficiency. If employers can be induced to take such a scheme as this up, and devote the necessary care, and patience, and attention to the details, there is no reason why it should not work out well, and, so far as the Bill, or the Government, encourages employers to do this, good work will lie clone.” AGAINST PREMIUMS.

“With regard to the needs.wage—of course, wo understand it is optional on tho part of any persons to adopt this, but wc are satisfied that a needs wage is no more going to euro the evils which the workers complain of than tho Arbitration Act,” said Mr I. Young, a representative of the Federated Bootmakers’ Union.

“Wo aro strongly opposed’’ ho continued, “to anything being put in the Bill giving us all the evils of sweating for the advantage of higher wages to men in tho highest form for a few years, who will then bo left practi-' cally physical wrecks. We know what; has happened in America and England. In my own trade, in England, it has been necessary to prevent this thing by getting a log under which a man shall not do more than a certain amount of work for a certain amount of pay. Tho only effect of such a system would be to make a man old before ids time. "We do not think that an academic question of this sort should be imported into a Bill when tho whole practice of life goes to condemn tho thing as calculated to do no good to the nation at largo at all. The policy of bustle is no good at all to a country, and wc do not want to do anything which will bring it about. that forty-four hours a week is fast becoming the recognised hours of work in a largo number of industries, and if it was placed on the statue book that tho minimum wage was to be Is 11-d per hour it would solve the labour question for a long time to come. The Arbitration Court should bo prevented from saying that men, when old, should got from 7d to lOd an hour, because we think it is a crying shame. Tho Trades Conference for years asked for a minimum wage to be fixed, and it has not been the need for it has come now.”

The opinion of Mr James Thovu (representing the Trades and Labour Conference) was that the needs and exertion wago clause was another.ono the violations of the principles of trades unionism- All the world over, the trade unionists had fought against the classification of workers. One© classification is introduced it meant speeding up, and conscqeunt injustice. Ho gave his experience of the premium system in Messrs Booth and Macdonald s foundry, Christchurch. It had, ho said, caused a lot of jealousy and bad feeling. “I might say/’ he added, “that our own council dealt with this matter some time ago, and the Hon. Mr Barr and one or two others dealt with Mr Booth's position at the time. Wo pointed out in a circular which we issued to tho unionists that this system, in our opinion, was absolutely and completely immoral, and in other countries of the world it has been one of the greatest factors in destroying the physique of both men and women.” “GOING SLOW” IN THE BUILDING TRADE.

“Going slow” work by employees was mentioned by the representative of the Federated Builders of New Zealand (Mr W. L. Thompson) who gave evidence before the committee. He found that in his particular business although the worker’s wages had not increased more than about ten per cent, on what they were twelve or fourteen years ago, his efficiency, or the amount of work done, was not more than 50 per cent, of what it was twelve years ago. lie mentioned an instance. About fourteen years ago ho had a contract, and allowed 6s per 100 ft for labour on the raw material. He mado a profit of 6d out of that; while he had frequently now allowed 10s for the same amount of work and made a loss, although it was exactly the same class of work. That simply went to show that there was less work being done by the worker now than there was twelve or fourteen, years ago, while the wages had not increased probabty more than 10 per cent. That accounted in a very large degree for the increased cost in building. THE POWER, OF THE PRESS. The remarkable suggestion made by Mr M. J. Reardon (a delegate of the Trades Council Conference) was that an anonymous writer in our evening contemporary was the father of the “needs and exertion wage” suggestion. “In my experience the exertion wage is this,” he said. “In the sawmills the man who gets the exertion wage is the henchman. Wo had evidence in Invercargill last month of a man receiving £l6 a month and a bonus. If tho henchman works hard every other man in the mill must work hard too. Those who supply the logs are worked harder and those who take the timber away must work harder.” “Tho revolutions of all the other wheels depend upon the revolutions be makes?” suggested Mr Tanner, chairman of tho committee.

"That is so,” answered the witness, “and ho is theonly one who receives consideration at the hands of his employer. We feel it would be impossible to make provision for an exertion wage without doing grave injustice to the majority of men.' It would mean that one would get an exertion wage while an injustice was being done to twenty.”

Mr Iteardon, quoting from his own experience, denied that the “go slow” principle was observed by timber work-, crs. i!e believed the average output of timber per man was 8000 feet per day, which ten years ago was regarded as extraordinary. The improvement to some extent was attributable to better mechanical methods, but was also due to men becoming ambitious, not' so much for monetary gain, but because they had pride in their work and try to excel others.