DAIRYING AFFAIRS

Southland Times, Issue 22969, 15 August 1936, Page 14

DAIRYING AFFAIRS

The ward conference of the Dairy Board held in Invercargill on Thursday gave dairy factory delegates an opportunity to express some of their thoughts about the fixed prices and the prospects of the industry under the new order of things. And some of them spoke very plainly. The outcome was a motion expressing the conference’s opinion that the guarenteed price is not an economic one since extra costs have not been taken into consideration and urging the Government to reconsider the position with a view to paying a higher price. This latter is a forlorn hope, but estimates of production costs this season provide ample justification for the view that although the price in itself is satisfactory enough, dairymen will be worse off than they were before. Factory overhead charges must increase considerably, and so must farmers’ individual costs. The opinion of men who should know is that “it cannot be done.”

As Mr A. J. Murdoch, chairman of the Dairy Board, told the conference, it is not possible to estimate accurately the new costs of production until the red’iced working week is announced; but it is possible to calculate the incret.»e in factory wages on a basis of a 40-hour week. There has been nothing made public to suggest that the dairy industry will be given any special consideration. It has a right to expect a 44-hour week at least, but that would not make a great deal of difference. The writer can quote figures taken out for several factories of different sizes, and they are a revelation. They show that the first assistant of a factory of about 300 tons, working a 40-hour week, would receive £4lB for a working season of nearly 10 months (including 21 days’ holiday) instead of £lB7 under the conditions of last year. The second assistant of the same factory would receive £358 instead of £l6l for 8.“ months’ work and holiday. And the manager would go from £283 to £342 for a full 12 months’ work—back to the 1931 award, and behind both his assistants. In another case the first assistant would go from £196 to £414, Vie second assistant from £156 to £346, a>;d the manager from £290 to £348.

The assistant first quoted worked 276 days’ ordinary time last year under a 63-hour week. On a 40-hour week, he would work 231 days of 6j hours nt 16/9 a day, 77 7-10 days of 6j hours 25/1 a day, 38 Sundays of nine hours n 45/3 a day, seven statutory holidays of nine hours at 67/10 a day (treble time), and his 21 days’ holiday at 16/9. Similar figures could be quoted in other cases, but that one is quite sufficient to seive as an authentic illustration. No provision is made for the employment oi extra men, which would not be practicable in small factories and would make a difference of only a few shillings a week in the bigger ones. The following table speaks for itself. It shows the increase in wages entailed by the operation of a 40-hour week in a 300-ton factory:— Assistants’ Wages.

Present 40-hour Increase cost week £.s.d. 1935-36 cost Per ton cheese £2 5/4 £5 2/- £2 16/8 Per lb. cheese .243 d ,547 d ,304 d Per lb. butterfat .649 d 1.461 d ,812d j Managers and Assistants.

Per ton cheese *!3 4/2 £6 4/10 £3 0/8 Per lb. cheese .344 d .669 d .325 d Per lb. butterfat .919 d 1.787 d ,868 d

The percentage increase in the cost of production to a 300-ton factory would be 25.95, in a 290-ton factory 25.68, in a 260-ton factory 26.12, and in a 64-ton factory 22.05. The increase per ton of cheese in these four instances would be respectively £3 0/8, £3 2/11, £2 17/9, and £3 7/1. Per pound of cheese it would be ,325 d .337 d ,309 d and .359 d and per pound of butterfat it would be .868 d ,872 d .810 d and .917 d respectively. These are figures worked out authentically on a 40-hour week basis, and they show that the load is too heavy to be reasonable. They cover only managers’ and assistants’ slaries. There are the costs of materials and other charges to be reckoned with, and it is expected that they will go up by about 15 per cent, anyway. Cheese-making requires nine hours a day. Any attempt to cut down hours would have its effect on the quality of the product. It is fairly certain that a 40 or 44-hour week will result in an attempt in some cases to hasten the process of manufacture, and that can have only one result. The Government is buying all produce and has to sell it overseas. The inducement to speed up the process to cut down costs will probably more than offset the slight encouragement given by the preferential price for quality. The other side to that story is that New Zealand finest cheese has a reputation to maintain, and any fallingaway in quality will react on the Government itself.

From conversations with men in the industry, the writer has gathered that there would have been little objection to a return to the 1931 scale of wages if only a sufficiently long day had been left for manufacture. The working day should be based on the time it takes to make a first-class cheese. There is one bright side to the question, though. If the new conditions are not popular with factory directors and suppliers, they certainly mean a rosy outlook for assistants.

assistants, who certainly have not been overpaid during the past few years.