INDUSTRIAL AFFAIRS

Otago Witness, Issue 3549, 28 March 1922, Page 17

INDUSTRIAL AFFAIRS

GENERAL REDUCTION IN WAGES, LONDON, March 23. Wages in practically all trades are suffering further automatic reductions through the fall in the cost of living. Tha civil servants’ reductions will operate from April 1, when the war bonus will be considerably diminished. The shipbuilding engineers’ employees are opposing the proposed reductions; but the employers are adamant. Working men generally urge that, in view of automatic reductions in wages, rents should also be reduced. BRUSSELS, March 22. The metal masters have notified their intention or reducing wages 20 per cent. AGREEAIENT REGARDING HOURS. LONDON, March 22. Dr T. J. MacNamara (Minister of Labour), replying to a question in the House of Commons, said that an agreement had been reached regarding the working hours in the building trade. CONDITIONS TN AUSTRALIA. LONDON, March 25. The Hull Chamber of Commerce tendered a banquet to Air H. N. Barwell, Premier of South Australia. Air Barwell. in a speech, referred to the Commonwealth Government running- a line of steamers. He believed in private ownership and control. Government, control was foredoomed to failure. Australia was passing through trying times. Like England, the Australian working men were being led b y Bolshevist extremists, who were responsible for class hatred between Capital and Labour and consequent unemployment, which w~aa holding Australia bark. They must get down to a proper economic basis. What was wanted in Australia was lower wages. NO WORK ON SATURDAYS. NEW YORK, March 25. Mr Henry F’ord has adopted a 40-hour week as a permanent policy in all his factories, closing all day on Saturday and Sunday. Eight hundred men have been added to his Detroit staff. AMERICAN COAL MINERS NEW YORK. Alarcli 21 A telegram from Indianapolis states that 95 per cent, of the union coal miners throughout the country voted in favour of a strike on April 1, to force the owners into a Welsh Scale Conference. SEAAIEN’S UNION THREAT. MELBOURNE, Alarch 21 The Seamen’s Union has issued a manifesto stating that as there has been a conspiracy between Air Hughes and the Commonwealth Line of steamers to prejudice the claims of seamen in the courts, and as the union has failed to secure its demands by constitutional means owing to the unscrupulous methods employed by those referred to, the union will adopt such methods as it thinks fit to secure justice for its members. SYDNEY, Alarch 22. Information has been received by representative people in the affected industries that in a desperate endeavour to wrest control of industry from the hands of the employers, irlans liave been made by the Seamen and Aliners’ Unions for a strike which in extent and intensity will rival the 1917 upheaval. The pretext for this will be resistance to any attempt to reduce wages. The plans are stated to be fully prepared, and it is said that reciprocal agreements have been made with certain unions in New Zealand. The council of the Miners’ Union discussed the position, and decided that, no matter what happened, nothing would alter their determination not to agree to a reduction of wages. UNEMPLOYMENT IN N.S. WALES. SYDNEY, Alarch 23. The official unemployment figures for the State show that 11,000 persons were idle at the end of February, which is 2000 fewer than in January. SYDNEY WHARF LABOURERS. SYDNEY, Alarch 24. The wharf labourers at a- mass meeting passed a resolution in favour of a continuance of the bureau system of picking tin labour which was instituted during the 1917 strike, also urging a rotary scheme of employment, with light work, for aged and incapacitated mernbeis.