Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 84, 30 June 1927, Page 7

Trades and the Workers

UNION MEETINGS DUE Brick Workers July 2. Shipwrights July 4. Drivers .. July 4. General Labourers .. .. July 6. Moulders July 7. Caretakers July 7.

Gaswork employees go gay at a social at Scots’ Hall to-night.

In the Queen’s Theatre on Sunday evening Mr. W. T. Anderton will speak on “Things That Matter.”

Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner, is away at Arapuni. He will return on Saturday.

Messrs. R. F. Barter and J. Sutherland have gone to Arapuni on invitation. The secessionist movement in the camp has thrown everything into the melting-pot down there.

To-day is the tramwaymen’s big day. A meeting is being held, which will conclude this evening, to consider the features of the new agreement offered by the City Council.

A Conciliation Council will be held in Hamilton on July 26 to consider the working conditions of country local body employees, whose award has expired. A general improvement in conditions and wages is being asked.

The Day is Coming.—“ There has never been a time when we have been able to earn, our living with so little effort and in so short a working day. The time is coming when making a living will be the smallest of man’s tasks. We shall produce our necessities by a mere fraction of our strength, and use the rest in experimenting with the universe.” —Henry Ford.

Arbitration Court Business.—The list to be put before the Arbitration Court this session promises to be on the small side. So far there are set down for hearing the quarry and scoria pit workers, female bookbinders, New Zealand coachworkers, and the journalists’ awards, and the usual run of four or five compensation cases, applications to join parties, and appeals under the Apprentices’ Act.

Dairy Workers’ Hours.—Farmers in conference at Rotorua last week bewailed that dairy factory workers were paid too much. Of course, it is a case of the usual rural howl. If there is a contented farmer in New Zealand he should be travelled round the country in a gilded, upholstered cage, headed by a brass band, and surmounted by a golden cow rampant. Conditions of work in dairy factories leave much to be desired, and that on the workers’ side. General hands in cheese and butter factories are paid under award at the rate of £4 Is a week. For cheese hands it is a 60-hour week of seven days, and for the butter hands a 56hour week of seven days while the season lasts. General hands form the bulk of the workers. The highest wages provided for are those of first assistants, who get £ 5 3s 6d. When the season is over staffs everywhere are reduced to a minimum, and quite a number of men under present conditions spend the remainder of the year in the ranks of the hungry. What do the farmers want? Do they ask men to work longer hours, or do they wish them to accept less wages than in the award? In the nature of the case it is impossible for the men to do either.

Labour Radio.—Negotiations are under way for the purchase of a high-powered radio broadcasting station in the Eastern States, to be controlled by the American labour and progressive movement, it is announced by directors of the Debs Memorial Radio Fund, which is seeking “to perpetuate the voice of the late Eugene V. Debs,” the noted labour leader. The station will operate in the interest of all progressive movements and ideas and will aid every legitimate effort of the American Labour movement to improve the economic and cultural status of its membership. A board of trustees, selected from every shade of Liberal, Radical and Labour opinion, will guarantee a non-sec-tarian control of the station, he said.

BY BOXWOOD

Having read a letter from the Alliance of Labour asking that as much work as possible be proceeded with to absorb the unemployed, the Newmarket Borough Council decided to reply that it was contemplating raising money for works for unemployed.

The Department of Labour. —There is the other side to the unemployment question—the Labour Department. It is stated at the Labour Bureau that between 500 and 600 men have been placed since the Government relief works began this winter, and Auckland has had a good share of these works. Men are sent aIJ over the province on these jobs, and do not hedge at the 9s and 12s a day rates. The bureau states that the men take it eagerly enough, and only one in a hundred turns the job down. What encourages some of them is the fact that after a fortnight, to find their feet, men are put on piecework. One man who in normal times was a pork butcher is quoted as now earning £ 7 and £ S a week.

Under the Preference Clause.—The Newmarket Borough Council is scratching its head so to speak over the application of the preference clause to an officer on its staff. The man in question, let us coll him Smith, was a member of his union but dropped off the list. Now he is found on a job for which the union has offered to supply an equally qualified man. Smith argqes that his job could not be filled under the preference clause and has refused to join the union. The Borough Council is debating what the result of his refusal is going to be on the borough and have taken legal advice. “If this man is being persecuted by the union we must defend him, but if not he must join the union.” “Why doesn’t he pay up his few shillings and be done with it.” “Don’t let the council be embroiled in it.” These were three opinions expressed about it at last evening’s meeting of the council.

Freezing Works Employment.— Where the freezing workers go in the winter-time is almost as difficult a question to answer as the music hall query as to the mysterious disappearance of flies in the same season. Of all seasonal occupations there are most insurmountable objections to freezing works employment. That is proved by the number of men new to the industry that come forward every season. Perhaps 50 per cent, of the employees every season are new to the work and have to be trained and organised. Folk will talk about the high wages earned but for the sake of permanent employment half the workers forsake the industry each year. That was less marked when workers got a longer season fn. Once it was October till June, but now the season usually lasts only from November or December to April. One of the factors that has spoiled the trade for workers is that too many works are operating. They send their buyers too early and the works are doing stock not really finished. Perhaps this is as real a reason as any for some of the poorer quality meat on the export market and the result is not good for either party. * * *

Mount Eden Gaol Quarry Workers’ Rival.—There are some queer anomalies in our social system, but the queerest of all is the cause of the sorry plight in which quarry workers in Auckland find themselves. Whenever quarry workers here ask for an improvement in wages or conditions the invariable retort from employers is: “Sorry, indeed, but we can’t possibly give you a rise owing to the competition of Mount Eden gaol.” That is a fact. Anyone who will provide for the carting can buy metal produced by free gaol labour against which the quarry owners have to compete and pay wages. The difference in rates for metal naturally resulting from this is a serious handicap to both owners and workers. If something does not happen soon, quarry workers will have to go to gaol to follow their line of toil. It is rather an oddity that folk incarcerated to prevent them being a menace to the community should so affect the living conditions of a class of workers from inside the gaol walls. On behEilf of the quarry workers out of gaol, Mr. J. Sutherland, secretary of the union, is preparing a statement for the Arbitration Court.