Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 274, 9 February 1928, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

By

“ARBITER”

UNION MEETING DATES g*turdav. February 11 .. •• .. Fellmongers Monday, February 13 •• •• •• . • •• . • .. .. Painters Tuesday, February 14 .. .. .. Storemen Wednesday, February 15 .. .. .. .. .. .. Plasterers Wednesday, February 15 Hotel and Restaurant Workers Thursday, February 16 Alliance of Labour

The annual picnic of the Auckland . Furniture Trade is dated for SjSJJLy March 10. when the ferry J er will go to Home Bay, Motu*tea Island. Unemployed financial of the union who have signed unemployment book will receive complimentary tickets for the terry. preliminary' work in connection with ►.. conference in March o£ the Amal««ted Engineers’ Union has been on. and Mr. R. F. Barter, secre"Zr is moving about the district in interests of the union. He left #*terday for Portland, in the North, will return at the end of the week. “If you advertised a meeting of unployed. and every man turned up in rnvic Square, I doubt whether you iould have a crowd of much over 1,000 Mople” This is the conception of the unemployment position which one “ n concerned has. The same man mjrht be staggered if he were compiled to count the actual muster if such a meeting were held in Civic Square. Drift to Australia Since bad times befel many of our workers a few months ago, there lias been a steady drift in some trades toward Australia, where conditions were tetter and the market less tight. During I® B * year about 159 carpenters and joiners crossed the Tasman from New Zealand in search of fresh fields, and most of them appear to have done well, while in the past three months 30 electricians have left New Zealand for the same destination. All of these are reported to have secured jood employment on the other side. jto Housebuilding "There are not 50 houses going up in the city and suburbs of Auckland.” This is the assertion of Mr. Hugh Campbell, secretary of the Painters’ Union, who has combed the district in search of jobs for the members of his branch. The search is in vain, however, as the house-building that is going on at present is negligible. An Extra Hour There are several phases of the newly operating Shops and Offices Act lhat suggest ‘‘point working” on the part of some of the influential ‘employer*—whether intention or otherwise, "Arbiter” confesses ignorance. The hour at which a girl must cease work in a shop under the old Act was *9.30 p.m., but it is now provided that if the shop is being run in conjunction with a marble bar or restaurant, the employer may make his female employees over 21 work until 10.30 p.m. in the marble bar or restaurant after uhe has finished her work in the shop. This might sound little enough in its national aspect, but to the individual girl worker the prospect of an extra hour’s work for no extra money is anything but pleasant. War In the Union Things are moving in the Bread barters’ Union in Sydney, and trouble has reached that stage where police protection is necessary if any business is to be done. It is doubtful, however, whether the police have power to Intervene. Reports from the Other Side indicate that differences of opinion between members of the union culminated in a section at a recent meeting seizing the minute books. The militant section contended that the officials of the union did not possess the confidence of members. The officials retorted that the hostile section was Inspired by “Red” doctrines. That was ths case put to the Minister. As a meeting of the “moderates” is to be held, officials desire police protection in order to allow the meeting to be held, contending that, unless sucii assistance be afforded, no meeting will be possible, in view of the hostility of the recalcitrants. Girls in a Quandary The falling -off in business in some of ths suburban shops has been so freat that girls working under award

conditions have been dismissed through their employers being unable to pay them the specified wage. The girls themselves plead for a bread-and-butter wage in order to retain a livelihood: but the award says “No,” and the girls have to go. The shop-keepers wish to keep their employees at a temporarily reduced rate, and have suggested that the question be thrown open till the present acute unemployment situation eases, and enables them to get back to the standard rate. Without question it is a problem. If the lower rate were established, where would it be allowed to stop? Several cases of afouse of this principle have come to the notice of “Arbiter,” cases in which farmers —those carefully-nurtured children of an over-indulgent Government—have taken men with families and made them work for their keep alone! Would the small shopkeepers abuse the privilege if a precedent were established? It is a dangrous precedent, but could not the girls themselves decide in the circle of their own union as an emergency measure? Organised Labour in Auckland has appointed its delegates to the conference of Labour interests in Wellington this week as a preliminary to the joint conference on the I.C.* and A. Act, and these men, numbering five, are at present in the Capital City executing the spade work with which it is hoped to dispel the screen of misunderstanding on the fundamental differences between employer and worker. The snag will, of course, be the satisfaction of the farming community, but whether the employers generally and the big body of employees will bow to the rural interest altogether will have to remain obscure for the time being.