THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22125, 1 December 1933, Page 2

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES By J. T. Paul. We cannot escape the duty we have to the rest of the world in whatever part of the Empire wc may live. And if I am to define what that duty is, I cannot do better than by saying it is, to my mind, the same duty as lies upon every individual—namely, to try and leave the world a little better and a little happier than he finds it. That seems to me the duty that lies upon all of us as citizens of the British Empire.— Lord Robert Cecil. DAIRY FACTORY DRIVERS. ' No agreement was reached in the dispute before the Conciliation Council between the Canterbury dairy factory drivers and the dairy factory employers, in which the difference between the parties concerned the wages paid to cream carters. The meeting was an adjourned one from November 13. The employers would not deviate from their offer of £4 for drivers of lorries up to five tons and of £4 2s 6d for lorries in excess of five tons. The employees’ assessors held out for £4 5s for all carters. Agreement could not be reached upon the question of holidays, the employers desiring to allow time off in the slack season for holidays worked in the busy season and also to allow time off in the slack season for overtime worked in the 'busyseason. The employees’ assessors refused to agree to these proposals. Finally, it was decided to refer the matter to the Court of Arbitration. The position in the industry as it stands now that no agreement could he reached is that there is no award in the industry. DOMESTIC SERVANTS. For the first time in Western Australia an award has been issued covering employees at lodging and boarding houses and service flats (states a correspondent to the Wellington Evening Post). It is provided that, unless a female adult employee signifies her approval to the contrary, her name, when addressed by her employer, should be prefixed by Miss or Mrs. The award provides for a 48-hour week; wages from 12s 6d a week for girls of 17 to £3 9s 6d for male cooks, with keep; 13J hours’ spread daily before payment of overtime; a two-hour break daily; two half-days or one full day off weekly; sick pay; and two weeks’ holiday on full pay annually. THE LABOUR MARKET. The demand for farm labour in South Canterbury at the present time is stronger than it has been at any time in the past imree years, so a representative of the Timaru Post was informed. Domestics were keenly in demand, and very often positions were not filled. Wages for this type of work were rising, and ’£l a week was common, while 15s was about the average. Applications for gardeners and cowmen were constant, and ploughmen •were getting 25s and 30 s a week. It appeared as if wages were gradually getting back to the pre-slump level. The demand by single men for relief work on farms in South Canterbury at present is not nearly so acute as at the corresponding period last year, the secretary of the Timaru Unemployment Committee informed members. At this period last year there were fully 150 men engaged on farms, but at present there are scarcely 50, the others having found private work in the meantime. The department hoped to close down the Brinklands camp in a fortnight, and the Clandeboye camp a week latter, and by Christmas to finish up the No. 4a scheme in the district. This would leave only the Glen Lyon and the Briggs’ Gully camps still in use. This information was given to the committee in answer to a statement by Mr H. G. Naylor, who commented that it was remarkable, in view of the fact that go many single men were unemployed in the district, he had been unable to secure through the committee a man to go out on a farm as a cowboy at 10s a week, which would be raised to 15s when shearing w-as started.

WAGE CUT RESTORED. In the Federal Arbitration Court at Melbourne, Judge Drake-Brockman made certain variations in the flour mill employees’ award, with the consent of the parties, restoring the 10 per cent, by which wages had been reduced to employees in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. When the formula for the basic wage was recently altered by the Full Court, employees in the industry received an increase of 4s Id a week, but the restoration of the 10 per cent, will give employees from 3 S 3d to 6s a week additional. Other variations included .the deletion of the provision of 2s 6d a week for lost time, a reduction in the rates for youths, and an alteration in the rates paid to weekly hands engaged in carrying wheat. PIECEWORK FOR RELIEF.

There has been much discussion and some confusion associated with the introduction of the piecework system on jobs being carried out by relief workers. The Canterbury district engineer (Mr F. Langbein) has presented to the Christchurch Unemployment Relief Committee what appears to be a clear and concise description of the conditions associated with relief work. He says:— “I have to advise that the Ashley job is the only work where piecework is being adopted. There are a number of works where co-operative contract is in operation, but this is quite different from piecework. , ... “In the case where, through disabilities, extreme age, or other such reasons, it is considered that any particular man would be caused undue hardship through trying to keep up with pieceworkers, he is placed on a job suitable for day work only, with the proviso that should he not give satisfaction he would be placed on piecework. “ When split into gangs each gang is shown a measured length of work to be completed. This length is arrived at after the quantities have been carefully measured and a suitable price per cubic yard arrived at according to the class of material involved. “ The price arranged is based so that an average group of relief workers can, bv working steadily, finish before their allotted time; thus good steady workers working hard will finish their task and leave the job well before they would normaliy do so on day wages. The prices paid for excavation vary from Is 4d per cubic yard in very easy silt to 2s 6d 'in tight, rough shingle requiring barrowing. These prices would be regarded as abnormally high for ordinary contract workers, but, as has previously been explained, consideration has been given to the fact that the men as a whole are not fitted for or experienced at the work.” The letter added that piecework had been introduced on the Ashley job on October 9. and a table showed how the work was finished in comparison with the time allotted. The table showed that the work had been completed in the time given, and in many cases there was a big saving in time. “The gangs in the period were having their first introduction to pieqework,” the letter continued, “and it was exceedingly difficult to convince some of them that they were not being imposed upon. In a number of cases little work was done during the first week, but after a start had been made and the end appeared within measurable distance the work went ahead well, and it can be truthfully stated that had all hands worked in the first week as they did in the second week every gang would have finished well before its time.”

FORTY-HOUR WEEK. An Order-in-Council has come into force in Quebec limiting the hours of work in the building trades in Quebec city and the Eastern Townships Division of the province to eight in the day or 40 in the week. The order is a sequel to that introducing a 40-hour week on public building undertalnngs in the western parts of the province. The order applies to the whole building industry, recognising that that industry is not in any manner subject to the competition of other countries or provinces. It was adopted after consulting the employers’ and workers’ organisations concerned. The hours of effective labour are limited to eight in the day or 40 in any week, contractors being free to adopt a time table of two shifts daily of six hours each on six days a week.

The Minister of Labour is authorised to grant exemption permits for preparatory, supplementay, and urgent work. BIG AND LITTLE BUSINESSES. “The industrial world,” said Professor Annan at the British Association, “is finding that there is a limit to efficiency by rationalisation, that it does not always bring about the desired effect, and that it may bring about more harm than good. I have discovered signs of a reaction toward the medium-sized business, with a renewal of the personal touch between employer and employee which such conditions render possible. There has been a comparatively steady registration of companies with nominal capital under £50,000, but a considerable fall in the number of companies with nominal capital of £50,000 or over. The fall is even more striking if the comparison is made between companies of over and under £IOO,OOO of capital. Although the volume of trade carried on by large-scale enterprise is enormous, it is doubtful if in the aggregate it is not equalled or even surpassed by the turnover of the vast number of small and medium-sized businesses.” WHO SHOULD WORK? It may, of course, be true, writes Mr A. G. Gardiner, that it is more important from a social point of view that men should be employed than that women should be employed. Men are apt to deteriorate more than women if they are without the discipline of a time table. Except in rare cases, they are helpless " about the house.” _ They are_ not handy with a sewing machine or knitting needles, and have no interest in clothes beyond wearing them out. When a man’s hat is shabby you don't find him sitting at home in the evening putting on a nice new band, and if his trousers are baggy and shiny it does not occur to him to spend the Saturday afternoon in turning them inside out. He wants his Saturday afternoon for more thrilling entertainment. In all these respects women by habit and temperament are in less need of harness than men, and do not deteriorate as men do in the absence of fixed duties and regular work. But this has no bearing upon the solution of the unemployment problem. The exclusion of women from industry would not increase work or wages. _ It would only introduce a sex disability in a field in which that disability has no justification and no practical meaning—not even the meaning of lowering the cost of production.