Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 102, 21 July 1927, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

BY

BOXWOOD

UNION MEETINGS DUE Boiler-Makers Alliance of Labour Typographical luli Painters’ Ju! - Bricklayers _ Amalgamated Society of Engineers .. Carpenters , July 27 Coopers - . • .. July 28 Stonemasons * July 28 CONCILIATION COUNCILS Northern District Local Bodies- Labourers (at Hamilton) July 26

Dairy employees hold a meeting this afternoon on the hot question of morning hours. Mr. W. Miller, secretary of the Storemen’s Union, has been out of town. He will be back to-morrow. * * * Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner. is in Wellington. He may be back on Saturday morning. Votes recorded in all the ballots in the Tramwaymen’s Union executive elections totalled 3,332. The Tramwaymen’s Union has had no reply from His Worship the Mayor, to its request that he should state his reasons for refusing to investigate complaints made by the men. Mr. A. Danks, retiring president of the Painters’ Union, was presented with a silver-mounted umbrella at last meeting in appreciation of his work during the eight terms he had occupied the chair. * * * The Tramwaymen’s Union is having its busy season just now. Affairs are at something like a crisis for the year. There are very important questions to be discussed at the special general meeting to be held in the Trades Hall on Thursday, July 28. The meeting will be held in two sections as usual. After Long Service.—Two old hands in the Tramway service died within a day of each other this week. The late Mr. M. Maloney was a long service man on the Permanent Way and the late Mr. P. Suchting was a motorman of over 20 years’ standing, and one of the oldest hands on the trams.

“In a Manner Dangerous.”—Those who travel on the trams at peak-load hours get used to it in time, but it certai: ly is a fact that the pace set is too hot. The Tramwaymen’s Union has realised the extreme danger to the community at large arising from the "racer” schedules at peak hours, and has appealed to the Minister of Public Works to do something.

Retrospective Compensation. The compensation case, Roberts against the Auckland Gas Company, was a handsome win for the plaintiff, who now lias a bank roll of retrospective compensation money to rejoice about as well as £2 11s a week to go on with as well as his right to further compensation. The Gas Employees’ Union took Roberts’s case in hand and deserves congratulation for fighting it so tenaciously. It all goes to show what unionism should be.

A Good Cause. —A benefit concert for the widow and children of the late C. F. (Pat) Allen has been arranged by the Painters’ Union, the; Newton’Social Club and the Buffalo Lodges. It will take place in the Town Hall Concert Chamber on Wednesday next. The late. Mr. Allen was well-known in his trade and had a large circle of fi*iends, who will doubtless present themselves for old time’s sake at the concert.

A Noted Leader.—Mr. E. J. Grayndler, general secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, the most extensive workers* organisation in the Southern Hemisphere, was in Auckland while the Maunganui was in port. Mr. Grayndler has been in the thick of the fray for many years and needs no introduction to the riper spirits in the Labour movement in these southern lands. Mr. Orayndler has been in America with the Australian Industrial Mission, and has found there that trade unionism is very much more virile than he expected. Mr. Grayndler also manages the “Labour Daily,” Sydney’s Labour paper.

Painters’ Lads. The Painters’ Union apprenticeship quota, which incidentally is four to one—the best in the Dominion—is nearly lip. Strict

adherence is no longer possible to the employers’ quota. Many boys are prejudiced against the trade, regarding it as “messy” or “smelly,” or “not healthy,” but it has a very high wage rate. The Apprenticeship Committee has given great attention to the proper training of embryo tradesmen, but has considerable difficulty in hunting them along to the Technical School to the classes providde. It has now appeared that the committee will have to begin enforcing attendance with such powers as it possesses.

Risks of the Job.—There is a good deal of sickness among the tramwaymen just now. It is one of the handicaps of the duties of these men, though few laymen have considered it in that light, that men on the passenger transport services have to run graver risks of disease than men in most other industries. As if it was not enough to fight the chills and draughts incident to their work they have the bad atmosphere of crowded trams to contend with. They have the coughing and sneezing of passengers on the cars to fight off, and they have to nandle germ-laden coinage from all sources. A conductor’s life is not a happy one. He is exposed to all the attacks of all diseases of the hour.

“Cockie” Cheek.—For pure cheek the cockie beats the band, as a prominent labour official remarked the other day. He soars with magnificent ease to the pinnacles of impertinence. This is a sample of rural magnanimity when sparring round for cheap labour. “Oh, yes! Send a man out to my place. We’ll give him something to keep him in tucker.” That is an offer quoted from actual experience. It is a pleasure to reflect that the farmers are not all as great skinflints as that. To combat such an attitude there is only one solution, and that is that the Arbitration Court should be prevailed on to grant registration to organised farm labour. Tlivrre is no logical reason whatever against the organisation of agricultural workers. The farmers themselves have one of the strongest organisations and, backed by the big rural boodler Government, they have successfLilly prevented farm workers from getting together. This state of things cannot always continue. In fact, it cannot continue much longer.

The Tuition of Apprentices. The working of the apprenticeship law has provided many problems to solve, but one of the greatest has been to give lads entering trades the best shops possible to get their training in. In the case of most trades any employer can secure his apprentices no matter what the equipment of his shop is like or how much or how little he is capable of teaching. The Painters’ Apprenticeship Committee lias had for some time a power which has now been conferred on the Electrical Trades Apprenticeship Committee, of inquiring closely into the facilities which any employer can offer for the training of recruits, and even to examine the books to find the volume of work done.

The committee can grant or withhold an application for an apprnetice in accordance with these facilities. It is a necessary power, and is being sought widely in industrial circles. Though it may result in fewer apprentices, it will result in making them tradesmen. Lads must be protected against shoddy shops. As it is, the court is rather cautious in allowing the power. It is given only when a committee is unanimous, and any lack of unanimity so far has always arisen frortf the employers’ side.

Poor training by employers whose eye is principally on cheap labour is a continuing evil. For an ill-trained lad meets the sack so often as a journeyman that he frequently saves and scratches until he can graduate into the ranks of miseducated employers, and, if he is not guarded against, fills his trade with botchers.