WAR’S DEMANDS ON WORKERS

Southland Times, Issue 24420, 28 April 1941, Page 4

WAR’S DEMANDS ON WORKERS

TEMPORARY LOSS OF PRIVILEGES

MR CHRISTIE’S ADVICE

(Special) WELLINGTON, April 26.

“Working people are justified in jealously guarding their hard-won working conditions and wages, but they should realize in their own and the country’s interest the necessity for some temporary modification which war conditions have made necessary,” said Mr H. M. Christie, chairman of the New Zealand Wool Council, when commenting on the statement made by him in Dunedin that essential industries should work 24 hours a day in shifts without overtime rates.

“The widest possible freedom of action and a relatively high standard of living are privileges we enjoy mainly through our democratic form of Government,” said Mr Christie. “Colonel Knox's plea to the people of the United States, ‘For God’s sake help before it is too late,’ applies with equal emphasis to New Zealand. Let us not foolishly throw away the bone for the shadow.

“War conditions imposed on us force the necessity for temporarily giving up some of the freedom and privileges we enjoy, in order to keep sound at least some of the structure of our economic system and institutions that we may retain the ultimate power of self-determination, but we must not for a moment forget that it entirely depends on the success of our soldiers overseas who are valiantly defending our rights whether we retain any of the power mentioned. MACHINERY LIMITS “In certain vital industries we have only limited machinery, and it is not possible to procure soon enough essential additional machines,” Mr Christie continued. “The necessity for increasing the output of some products .and changing the form of others by certain processing makes it imperative that where necessary we should keep the existing machinery working even up to 24 hours a day. “To carry out the work at a cost that will not make the price of the goods prohibitive, overtime rates should, in the class of productive work mentioned, be temporarily abandoned in favour of shift work at agreed-upon rates which it is practical to pay. This will be a very small temporary sacrifice compared to that being made by the men of the fighting services who today are the only protectors of our rights.

“I am not councilling the abandonment of conditions, many of which I have fought for, but unless common sense prevails, through blindly clinging to things which we enjoy at present, we risk total failure and will certainly seriously dislocate our economic structure and cause unnecessary suffering, especially among lower-paid working people.”