THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20400, 5 May 1928, Page 18

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES. ; By J. T. Paul. A NEW LADY LABOUR ADVOCATE. Rather a notable addition to the ranks of union officials whose duty it is _to appear before the Court of Arbitration (says “ Industrial Tramp ”) is Mies Purcell, who has been appointed secretary to the Auckland Grocers’ Assistants Union, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Mr J. H. Mortensen, the late secretary. Miss Purcell has had an active experience of 10J years, in the office, with Mr Mortensen in charge, and in view of her capabilities and experience the union decided to appoint her to the vacancy so suddenly caused. Her debut at the court was made last Monday, in an application to add parties to the grocers’ award, and she filled her duties in a manner that many an old campaigner would envy. THE NEW PARTIES. Mr W. J. Jordan, Labour M.P. for Manakau, in the course of an address to his constituents last week, said that the people were carried off their feet at the last general election by the fury of the wave of Coatesism. He did not altogether blame the people for putting up with the Reform Party. The members of the Opposition in previous years were largely to blame for not voting as a united body. There were some new parties being formed in the country. Nationalists, United Political organisatons, and what not. He did not regard the poltical _ platforms of these new parties as being of paramount importance. He was concerned to know if they would still stand together and vote against Reform on a no-confidence motion. He, personally, was with any member or party that voted to put out the present Government, and the outstanding duty of the whole of the Opposition was to get together, with one united purpose. "The sooner the Liberal and Labour parties realise this duty_ the sooner we shall get somewhere," said Mr Jordan. Ho predicted that before the end of the present year a United Liberal-Labour understanding would be arrived at, with the object of defeating the Government and the big financial interests operating in New Zealand to the detriment of the people. AN APPRENTICESHIP PROPOSAL. Regarded as a dangerous loophole for questionable opportunities to reduce the number of apprentices, a notice of motion to be considered by the Carpenters' Apprenticeship Committee was viewed with disfavour at last week’s meeting of the Canterbury Builders’ Association. Mr W. H. Winsor (secretary of the association) said that the motion, notice of which had been given by Mr E. C. Sutcliffe (secretary of the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners’ Union) was as follows: “ That every employer desiring to emEloy an apprentice in any branch or ranches of the trade shall, before engaging the proposed apprentice, make application in writing to the Apprenticeship Committee, and the committee shall either grant or refuse the apprentice after inquring nto the facilities within the scope of the proposed employer’s business for teaching the apprentice the branch or branches of the trade.”

“ When you give an Apprenticeship Committee such power,” Mr Winsor said, “ that committee can prevent apprentices from being taught a trade. If half the members of that committee were to say I had not the facilities for that trade 1 would be prevented from taking apprentices. Certainly, an aggrieved party could apply to the Arbitration Court for special exemption. But it is very easy for collusion to occur between the employer and the employee, to the detriment of the public. Could it not be for the benefit of men in a trade that no more apprentices should be employed? Could it not tend to bringing employers up through the journeymen class? Personally, I prefer to see this clause kept out of every award, but if it has got to be in one trade it should be in all." Mr J. W. Graham moved that the association’s representatives be instructed > to oppose the motion. “ I can't see the justice of it,” he said. “As far as our own trade is concerned, we have a safeguard in that an employer must be two years in business before ho can take on an apprentice. That means he must be well established, and able to fulfil the apprentice’s contract.” Mr N. Sale seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously. “ Now it brings up the vital question of what steps can be taken to have the clause eliminated from other apprenticeship orders allied to the carpentry industry, said Mr Winsor. He moved that this be the subject of an inquiry, and the motion was carried. WAGES IN CANADA. Rates of pay for industrial workers throughout Canada gained slightly in 1927, the average advance oyer 1926 amounting to 2 per cent., according to the annual report of the Canadian Department of Labour on wages and hours of labour. Canadian wages are still nearly 7 per cent, under the average for 1920. A report on prices and the cost of living which accompanies the wage data shows that the cost of a worker’s family budget in Canada during 1927 averaged 56 per cent, above that of 1913. With hourly wage rates averaging 84.3 per cent, above pre-war and the cost of living up only 56 per cent., an hour’s work will buy about 18 per cent, more in the way of goods and services than it would have purchased in 1913. The department's ‘figures on hours per week do not extend far enough back to make possible a comparison of actual earnings. Factory trades other than those classed as common factory labour have made the greatest gain compared with pre-war. Their wages have come down about 7 J per cent, from the peak of 1920. The coal miners’ wages have come down more than 19 per cent, from the peak, which was reached in the industry in 1921. LABOUR IN NEW SOUTH WALES. Judging from an editorial article in the Australian Worker, the _ Labour Party in New South Wales is in a bad way. The following extracts indicate the tenor of the criticsra; — “ Under the malign manipulation of the Garden faction, the Australian Labour Party in New South Wales has shrunk to tlie dimensions of a parish pump. “It is now purely parochial. In order to escape from its honourable obligations it has cut itself adrift from the rest of the States and the Commonwealth, and to-day is only a degenerate remnant of what was once a fine and virile and national movement. “ The State Executive declares that it owes no allegiance to the Federal body. It denies its authority _to decide any question whatever in which the State is involved. It even goes so far as to promulgate the view that there is no Australian Labour Party at all —that there are merely six State Labour Parties, each independent of the others, that the State Executives are supreme within their own borders, and that the Federal Party is no more than the product of a mutual agreement among the sovereign six. “ This un-Australian attitude was adopted in order to justify the State Executive’s dishonest action in repudiating the decisions of the Federal conference at Canberra, and subsequently in refusing to accept certain rulings of the Federal Executive, which heretofore has always been regarded as the highest tribunal in the Labour movement. “It is obvious that the Red element in control of the A.L.P. in New South Wales will stick at nothing. The other States are unlikely to support them in their Sovietic carryings-on. The Federal Executive is sure to frown upon their brazen flirtation with the Communist Party. They have therefore severed themselves from the Australian movement, have segregated Labour within the State boundaries, and are now proceeding to realise the ambition of the breakaways of 1919, and turn the A.L.P. into something which the Red dictators of Moscow can contemplate with a smile on their faces. . . . “ Is anything going to be done about it? Conference cannot help us. Under the Red rules it is a hopeless futility. There was no quorum on the afternoon of its last day, and only 47 delegates sauntered along at night wearily to bring the farce to an end. “ The most disappointing, unsatisfac- ' and futile conference that has ever