SKILLED WORKERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26689, 7 February 1948, Page 6

SKILLED WORKERS

HIGHER WAGE MARGIN SOUGHT EMPLOYERS’ ATTITUDE P.A. WELLINGTON, Feb. 6. So long as it was claimed that every worker who picked up a file or a hammer was a tradesman, so long must employers oppose any increase in the margin between skilled and unskilled wage rates, said Mr J. R. Hanlon, who appeared for the employers in the Court of Arbitration to-day. The court, was hearing the claim of the New Zea-' land Engineering, Coachbuilding, Aircraft, and Related Trades Union for a new award. Mr J. Neale, representing the workers, had said that to restore the 1919 margin between skilled and unskilled workers in industry would involve a rise of about 4s an hour for tradesmen and that was the union claim. Tradesmen were entitled to expect that their training and specialised skill would be adequately recognised in . the wage structure. Mr Neale submitted. The recent tendency had been to bring unskilled rates nearer to tradesmen’s rates, said Mr Hanlon. A labourer suggested that it cost him as much to live as it did a tradesman. The claim of the workers was not only extravagant, but the logical claims originally sought to reduce the tradesmen’s status by widening the definition of tradesmen. If the applicants were sincere in their claim they should seek to raise the status of tradesmen by narrowing the definition. “We cannot logically be expected to combine increases in margins with decreases in skill. If we have more and more workers coming into the group we cannot keep building wages upward and upward for skill which is not there As long as we have various tribunals fixing wage rates in this country so long will we have transfers to industries' with temporarily higher rates, and we will have no industrial stability in the country.” said Mr Hanlon.

Judge Tyndall said he did not think Mr Hanlon could altogether blame the Wage Tribunal for the transfers. He had only to look at advertisements in the newspapers to see the rates some employers were offering.