INDUSTRIAL WORLD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21242, 24 January 1931, Page 20

INDUSTRIAL WORLD.

NEWS AND NOTES. By J. T. Paul. SHEARERS’' CONDITIONS. Proposals designed to ensure more comfortable living conditions for shearers appear among the hundreds of motions on the agenda paper of the forty-fifth annual Australian Workers’ Union convention, which will open in Sydney on Tuesday next: — The political position and the pending amalgamation between the A.W.U. and the Miners’ Federation will intensify interest in the convention. The motions include the following, submittted by the Lansdowne (Q.) shearers: That all wooden bunks and straw mattresses be replaced by wire bunks and fibre or cotton mattresses. That all enamel and tinware in shed be replaced by delfware. That showers be provided with water laid on instead of pulling showers. That members be supplied with either mutton or beef free. That a 40-hour week be instituted in shearing industry. That where 20 or more are employed, brick or tank ovens be supplied. That a cooler or ice_ chest *be supplied in dining room during the summer months. Other motions are:— That no member of the State or Federal Parliaments be eligible to contest any A.W.U. ballot. That a plebiscite of members in the pastoral industry be taken on the abolition of shearing contractors. That the rate for shed hands'be £5 a week. That shed hands be paid the wage irrespective of age. That the rate tor, shearing be £7 10a a week with keep; combs and cutters found; and a limit of 80 sheep a day. MACHINE POLITICS. “The experience of President Hoover raises again the old question of the business man ( in polities,” writes Mr J. A. Spender, in the News-Chronicle, with reference to the result of the American elections. “In nearly all countries in recent years the cry has gone up for practical men, efficient men, engineering men, in place of talkers and performers, but scarcely one of them can be said to have made good when tried in a really responsible position, Either the politicians have, as the phrase goes, made rings round them, or they have lacked the capacity, which is altogether different from that of succeeding in a private enterprise, of handling the vast, manifold, and general interests that constitute public affairs. In Mr Hoover’s case, both his friends and his _ opponents expected him to show qualities of independence and courage in the face of adversity, of which so far he has shown no sign. To all appearance he has played a humble and submissive part, and the machine politicians have had it all their own Way in Congress and behind the scenes.” WHAT COMMUNISTS WANT. In these times when so much is heard regarding the demands of Communists it is interesting to learn exactly what is expected. Recently some 150 delegates, mostly Communists, expounded the aims of the ■ Unemployed Workers’ Movement in Melbourne. In consequence of a warning issued by the Trades Hall Executive, few unions sent delegates. Delegates condemned the tactics of the Labour Party, and the Trades Hall, and adopted plans which. aim at uniting the unemployed into a militant orgaisation “ for the overthrow of the capitalist system." Among the demands adopted by the conference were:— Seven-hours day and five-days week; Government guarantee of work for everybody or full wage compensation for unemployed; administration of unemployed insurance through committees in shops, etc.; total prohibition of evictions or seizures of furniture for rent; public buildings to be made available for the shelter of homeless workless and to he administered by the committees of the movement. Six-hours day and five-days week, with 15 minutes’ rest period for all young workers; no night work for women or young workers; abolitijn of all wages tax on amounts below £4OO a year; equal pay for equal work; free lunches for all school children; the right to strike and picket; abolition of child labour; abolition of arbitration courts; abolition of the use of the police against strikers and unemployed demonstrators. Messrs J. Aide and C. Monson, two welfiknown Communists, were elected secretary and president. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. In the House of Commons debate on the Unemployment Grant Miss Bondfield, Minister of Labour, gave some official information and figures. She said:— “The effect of the 1930 Act was to in-crease-certain rates of benefit for young men and women and adult dependants; to repeal the genuinely seeking work condition and the transitional condition as to reasonable periods of employment in the last two years; to recast the machinery for the decision of claims so as to secure that except in trade dispute cases no one except a court of referees or the , umpire can reject a claim to benefit.

“The effect of these changes, so far as they can be ascertained at present, is, with a live register of the present dimensions, as follows, and it is rather important that the committee slwuld note these figures: Increased rates of benefit, £4,250,000 per annum; benefit paid to persons on the register who would previously have been disallowed, 110,000 in number, £5,500,000 per annum; benefit paid to married women and others added to the register, estimated to be 70,000 claims, £3,250,000 per annum. Altogether the number of additional claimants is 180,000, and the amount per annum £13,000,000. “ The . debt at present stands at £56,000,000. It is increasing at the rate of £40,000,000 per annum. Contributions paid by workpeople on the present register amount to £14,000,000; contributions paid by employers, £16,000,000; and contributions paid by the Exchequer, £15,000,000 per annum. That is what we call the equal-thirds Insurance Fund. The cost of ordinary benefit taken out of the fund, including interest, comes to £85,000,000 per annum. “ The transitional benefit, the cost of which is payable wholly by the Exchequer, during 1930-31, is estimated to be £22,600,000 at the rate prevailing now. The total of the ordinary benefit and interest paid out of the fund, together with the transitional benefit paid by the Exchequer, plus the cost of administration, amounts to £107,000,000 per annum. “The cost of administration, which has to be deducted from that figure, is £6,500,000, and of that cost £1,500,000 is debited to the transitional benefit account. In addition to that, there is the cost of interest on the full sum, namely, £3,000,000 per annum, so that you have tp deduct from that total of £107,000,000 £3,000,000 for interest and £6,500,000 for administration to get the actual sum paid in benefits. "Married women now form 50 per cent .of the women claimants. In April, 1027, they formed 26 per cent. , It is estimated that the proportion of married women among the whole number of insured women is between 25 and 30 per cent., but this proportion is much higher in such trades as textiles and pottery, in which there is specially heavy unemployment among women. “As regards those who are actual claimants on the fund, the last analysis, which was in the Ministry of Labour Gazette for November, dealt ,with the date October 27, when there were 2,246,400 insured persons recorded as unemployed, of whom 283,541 are in coal mining, 233,073 in cotton, 174,444 in distribution, 125,035 in general engineering, and 143,731 in building. These figures speak for themselves as to the nature and the_ great volume of unemployment with which we are faced.” In the course of the debate, the following quotation from the Ministry of Labour Gazette referring to the Unemployment Insurance Act, which came into force in March, 1930, was read:— “There is also good reason for believing that whether as a result of the operation of the new Act or as the result of the depression in trade during the present year, a considerable number of persons are now claiming unemployment benefit upon leaving employment, who formerly would not have done so. “It may be computed that if the average rate of exit experienced during the three years 1925 to 1928 had continued during the subsequent two years, while the numbers of new entrants remained the same, there would have been passed out of the insurance scheme approximately 185,000 males and 130,000 females who are now included in the figures for July, 1930.”