THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21811, 25 November 1932, Page 4

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

s NEWS AND NOTES By J. T. Paul. The only available consumer is the human worker. And so, the only way to increase production is to bring it back to par —to increase the number of human workers. And the only way to increase the number of workers is to make more jobs, and the only way I know to make more jobs is for the employers to adopt the five-day week. —C. H. Palmer, president of E. R. Squibb and Sons, chemical manufacturers, New York. BANK OFFICERS’ SALARIES. Following a variation of the conditions of the Australian banks' award, the officers of three banks trading in New Zealand, with Australian headquarters, have been advised of a readjustment in salaries, taking effect from December 1. Although the variations range from an increase of £3 per annum to a cut of £2B per annum, the general effect is a reduction of wages. Officers near the end of their service have benefited slightly under the new rates, and in some cases receive small increases, while in the case of junior men with from five to seven years’ service, salaries have been reduced up to a maximum of £2B per annum. A further provision is the suspension of the usual salary increments until 1934. It is understood, however, that one of the leading institutions is not giving effect to this provision. In view of the fact that the same banks effected a 10 per cent, reduction in salaries last year, the notification ot the new rates has occasioned much surprise among staffs. PROFIT-SHARING. The effect of the depression upon employees’ bonus schemes was dealt with by Mr H W. Hudson, managing director ot L. D. Nathan and Co., Ltd., in an address before the Auckland Chamber of Commerce last week. The motive underlying profit-sharing was not altruistic, he said, Ijnt was a practical endeavour to bring employer and employee together in a common understanding of mutual dimculties. . , ... .. Mr Hudson, reviewing the history ot the scheme adopted by his firm, said:— “If the past 15 years, comprising three of progress, two of depression, succeeded by seven of recovery and three more of depression, can be accepted as a lair average trade cycle, and if the lowest bank overdraft rate can be regarded as representing approximately the commercial value of capital, it may be .safely asserted that under existing mdustna and fiscal legislation (if all uncapitalised assets be brought into account) only an exceptional enterprise can hope to yield over an extended period an average return upon proprietors’ funds equivalent to the bank overdraft rate, and still leave an N appreciable balance of profit, from which a periodical bonus distribution to employees can be made after providing for depreciation upon fixed assets at even the nominal rate allowed by the Commissioner of Taxes. The formula offered for determining, the existence of that balance and us extent, and for the automatic apportionment among the general body of ployces when due of that proporti which might be set aside for the purpose, had proved to be sound in principle, practicable, and widely applicable to large and small undertakings alike.

THE ELECTRICAL TRADE. Matters affecting conditions of employment in the electrical trade in Auckland were considered at a conciliation count: 1 last week. Practically all the clauses m the present award were at first m dispute. but tentative agreements have been reached on all questions with the exception of wages. The employees had ouginallv desired to maintain wages at'their present level-2s 3d an hour, less 10 per cent., and the employersi sought to reduce them to Is 9d an hour. At last week’s meeting of the counci the employers’ assessors stated that the highest offer they could make was Is 10 * d “0 hour. This was the same rate as that agreed upon at a conciliation council i connection with the electrical trade in Wellington. The necessity for reducing wages was regretted, hut in view o existing conditions no other course could adjournment the employees’ assessors announced that the union could not accept less than Is lljd an hour. Mr Allum urged the employees to reconsider their decision. He said that fanure to arrive at a settlement must inevitably prove detrimental to the workers. . H they went to the Arbitration Court they could no hope to obtain more than Is 10id an hour, the same as the Wellington rate, and if there was no award some ot the employers might take advantage or the position. Further consideration will be given to the wages question when the council resumes on Tuesday next. BASIC WAGE IN AUSTRALIA. According to figures issued by the Acting Commonwealth Statistician (Professor Giblin) there is to be a further drop in the Federal basic wage as from November 1. owing to the fall in the cost of living. The wage decrease in the various States will be as follows:—Sydney and Brisbane, Is per week; Melbourne Adelaide, and Hobart, Is 6d; Verw* 2s Od. The new wa;e in the various States will be: Sydney. £3 7s fld per week; Melbourne, £3 Is 8d; Brisbane, £2 16s Bd, Adelaide. £2 17s 2d; Perth, £2 19s sd, and Hobart. £3 4s 4d per w ( eek. . The following are the present basic wage rates; —Queensland, £3 . 14s per week; West Australia, £3 12s: ew South Wales, £3 10s; Victoria, £3 3s Gd; South; Australia. £3 3s. CAUSES OF DEPRESSION. Mechanisation of industry resulting in the displacement of human labour is the principal cause of the present economic troubles of the world, according to Mr A. Anderson, a prominent Hutt Valley resident, who recently returned from a tour of England and Canada extending over five months. To a Wellington Post reporter Mr Anderson said that he could see no improvement in the business world in either England or Canada, The first thing he had noticed in England was the enormous amount of shipping lying idle in the Thames, and to his mind this and unemployment had been caused in some measure by the high tariffs of other countries and by the high exchange rates. He quoted the Daily Times of Victoria, British Columbia, as his authority for the statement that Canada’s unemployed were four times the number they were two years ago and that conditions would grow worse unless the Government changed its high tariff policy which had resulted in economic war with Australia and New Zealand, among others. Unemployment in England was “ pretty bad,” said Mr Anderson. Tariffs and exchange rates played their part in producing it, but the greatest evil of all was the displacement of human labour by machinery. This was progressing so rapidly that the creation of new industries could not check the steady decline of employment. Mr Anderson instanced a factory nearing completion in New Jersey for the production ot rayon yarns. The factory would be entirely mechanical, and production could be carried on for 24 hours a day with about three people in control, taking the place of approximately 100 workers. In Mr Anderson’s opinion, if mechanisation as the cause of unemployment and trade depression did not receive the attention it merited it might well cause more distress than all the other economic problems added together. At the present rate of progress we would soon reach a stage at which mechanised mass production would be so perfected that vast factories would be run by a few dozen people in place of thousands. The seriousness of this-war-ranted even the stopping of inventions for a period of years. To Mr Anderson’s mind, conditions in Canada were, if anything, worse than in England. In a back-country town he had visited there salmon were bringing only three cents each, and the river was full of lumber waiting to be sawn, while the mills were idle because of huge stocks in liadd. Timber cheap as the fish. Double-dressed “ four-by-two ” cost 2 dollars 50 cents 1000 feet, and shingles I dollar 50 cents oer 1000. “My general impression was that New Zealand is really better off than other countries, though things are bad here,” concluded Mr Anderson.

THE WAGE RATE BASIS. Replying to argument in the Federal Arbitration Court at Melbourne during the hearing of an application by the Amalgamated Food Preserving Employees Union for a variation of the award to delete that portion of the wage adjustment table which would permit of further reductions of pay, Chief Judge Dethridge suggested that the workers might benefit if the court could evolve some satisfactory method of wage-fixing in place of the principle established in the Harvester award. It was extremely difficult, he said, to find another method. Any alternative seemed to be beset with practical difficulties. A “prosperity allowance” had been suggested, but the corollary of that was' a “depression deduction.” No l , doubt, a “ prosperity allowance ” would be popular, but a “depression deduction” certainly would not be. Wage-earners engaged in industries that were prosperous had bad, to sacrifice something for the benefit of workers in industries that were not prosperous. Annual adjustments would give greater stability. DISPLACED BY MACHINERY. “In March, 1931, in Pennsylvania, the American Steel and Wire Company had just equipped a new plant with electricity, and to-day in that plant, where 000 men were required before, only six men are required to produce more stuff,” said E. J. Garland, a Canadian M.P., in a recent address to farmers. “I went there, and I saw the great modern machinery used for the production of steel. I saw those great ingots carried and dropped, hardened while still red hot by streams of cold water; then with a flip of the lever that huge mass is rolled over until you have a great worm of red hot steel running almost the entire length of that great chamber, and the moulding of the steel into the rail is completed in one action, and a great saw cuts it into lengths as you would cut cheese with a knife. “ There you have' your steel rails. An electric magnet, with two men operating it. does the' work of 64 men in the piling of steel rails alone. “The same thing is. happening in every nation in the industrial world; and then a great Calgary statesman says: ‘ I will end unemployment.’ ”