INDUSTRIAL WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23558, 22 July 1938, Page 3

INDUSTRIAL WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES

By J. T. Fatal

The worth of a State In the long run Is the worth of the Individuals composing it.— MilL CLERICAL WORKERS’ AWARD In the north there is much discussion regarding the effect of the increases granted in the new clerical workers’ award. The employers’ advocate in the Conciliation Council expressed the opinion that one effect would be the dismissal of experienced workers and the employment of juniors. The retort of the workers' representative to this suggestion was: “We have heard that statement after every award that has come out." These opinions were expressed in Wellington. An Auckland employers assessor said that “the basic wage closed the door against people over 20 who may want 'to take up clerical work; the new award will bolt and lock it ’ He said the various awards now superseded made no provision for the entry of persons over 20. and it was suggested later in conciliation that they should be engaged at commencing rates equal to the basic wage of £3 18s and £1 16s for males and females respectively, which were the statutory minima in any event, However no agreement was reached By imposing the maximum scale rates in such cases the court had effectively barred entry into clerical work to all except young lads and girls. The award as a whole gave all the advantage to boys and girls who left secondary or technical schools about the age of 16, and put an obstacle in.the way of those who wished to complete the secondary course at 18 or 19 This spokesman for the employers also failed to she any justification for raising the women’s scale maximum 10s to £3 5s a week The court’s decision possibly had been influenced by evidence which the Clerical Workers' Association nad called to show by means of a budget that a voung woman living away from home required an income of at least £165 a year The woman worker who presented the budget had admitted that she had never earned more than £2 10s a week and that she had lived on that sum Several items in the list had been criticised in court, including £lO 10s for an annual holiday and £5 for hairdressing. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP

The problems of technical and vocational education and apprenticeship were included in the agenda of the International Labour Conference which opened at Geneva last month. If it were necessary to emphasis** the importance of this question, it would be sufficient to refer to the great shortage of skilled and specialised workers, due to the failure to maintain apprenticeship during the depression in the leading industrial countries at the present time. It was at first thought, according to a resume prepared by the 1.L.0., thai the development of the use of machinery would gradually reduce the necessity for and the importance of vocational training But the experience of recent years has shown that this pre diction was mistaken Indeed, more attention is given to vocational training to-day than at any time since the .beginning of modern industry. In every country the institutions providing this education and the methods that they employ are being subjected to a severe examination, with a view to their improvement and better adaptation to the needs of modern industry. Moreover an International Bureau of Technical Education, which collaborates very closely with the 1.L.0., has done much to develop these studies and to promote solutions of the problems which they involve. The most perfect machinery or other plant is useless without an adequate supply of skilled workers to make use of it. Undoubtedly the development of industry, especially since the Great War, has brought about considerable change? in the nature of the capacities required for various kinds of work. There is, indeed, an increave In the number of industries which do not demand any considerable manual skill of the workers employed, either because of the simplicity of the processes or because of the automatic or semi-automatic nature of the machinery or plant. But the operation of complex modern machinery necessitates that those who are in charge of such machines must possess other qualities, such as rapidity of movement. accuracy the power of constant attention, and a sense of responsibility based on the knowledge that their jobs are indispensable for the whole process of manufacture. The development of modern industry tends not to reduce th° need for vocational training, but rather to extend it. The former classification of workers into skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled is no longer an exact reflection of the facts. Moreover, new methods are necessary for the training of new classes of workers, attaching greater importance to theoretical knowledge and general intelligence. Further, changes In technical methods and manufacturing processes always lead to a cessation or decline of the demand for certain types of specialised workers and create a need for other specialists, One of the aims of vocational training therefore must be to secure the greatest possible mobility of labour; only thus will an undertaking be able to obtain rapidly and at any given moment it? labour requirements, and also will the worker, whose specialised ability is threatened be protected from prolonged or permanent unemployment In the opinion of exnerts. such adaptability will be promoted best by a training which while avoiding a too ranld specialisation seeks to develop weral intelligence. There is also this consideration "he extensive division of labour in the workshop normally gives a worker little opportunity of acquiring special ised knowledge in nth°r branches by which he can distinguish himself from his f"ilow,« and acquire a claim to promotion to a higher position To combat this danger of stratification vocational training should be organl~ed and devolved sn as to restore to the most capable workers all the posihilities of promotion ihat th* present organisation of work in industry tends to take awav from them

Eirm'lv vocational education as it* k understood to-dav. not oulv otavsan P'«pnt.iat nnrf In economic lifo but also Is on (mnor+ant piemen* *n social and cultural orpcp'es' Vocations 1 ocino'iftan bv providin'* the individus ivtth o fuller understanding of tb nar* be nlavs In tbe work of the under l ok)n« and of fbo peonomlc svstem a v i whole should to strengthen hie reuse of ftv» dlenltv of labour and bic nrldp T?v aiming at *b° devoionment of the Individual nersenalftv as a whole vocational cbfMitd nr<Miare the worker to rnebo fruitful use of his ti!T) f as wpU 05 train him for his OCPUUaHonr i 1 thus helns to brine occunaMonal Ufa nn A ° more into touch with tbo nrdinarv life of the worker outside his loh and this cannot but be nrofitab’o ,v > bnib riimdinris