INDUSTRY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6240, 10 June 1946, Page 3

INDUSTRY

A CO-OPERATIVE UNDERTAKING SOUTHERN EXPERIMENT An esteemed Kihikihi reader sends a copy of “The Church and the Community,” a paper published under the authority of the Executive of the ■National Council of Churches in New Zealand. The issue contains the following thought-provoking article:— The Christchurch Report on Industry and Commerce says: “We shall not be merely satisfied with industry until it is a conscious, informed and intelligent co-operative undertaking for the common good.” The firm, Dairy Products Ltd., of Edendale, South Otago, has become widely known for its experiments at co-operation between employees and management. Mr D. F. Sandys Wunsch, one of the directors of this firm, writes as follows:—• “I am interested to hear of your concern. with the way of life we are developing here. For it is rather as a way of living and working together that we look on our experiment. . . . We do not think a man ceases to be a man when he becomes an employee. Insofar as he is forced to do so,’he becomes a slave. Admittedly, some men. are happy in slavery, but it does not seem to us desirable that masses of men should be so reduced and the general results of the method have not been good. So we aim to avoid it. And yet there must be some loss of individual freedom whenever men work —or play—together. We want to keep this loss minimal, and we have examples from which to learn. Men band together for other purposes than to run factories. We consider mountain climbing parties, for example, and wonder why men make sacrifices and undergo hardships to take part in them. It is not for profit—that is greater in the factory—where does the essential difference lie? We think it is in this matter of slavery. Admittedly, the climbers are under a leader whose word is law, but each and every member of the party has the right, and the duty, to criticise and to have his views considered on any matter which affects the party. So the decisions of the leader—if he is any good, and, if not, he will cease to lead—.become the decisions of the whole. Each man knows why he must do his particular job, and has had a say in whether it should be done, how it should be done, and who should do it. So he does it willingly, for the benefit of all, and shares in the great pleasure which comes to men working together with their friends to achieve a common object. Can factory conditions be ’approximated to these? And, if so, will the results be similar? We think so, but the head of the factory must become a leader rather than a despot, and he must put all his cards on the table if he wishes his men to do so. Prices, profit general policy and the rest. Or .if, for the benefit of the concern or the country, he must hide something, it should be as little as possible, and ho should say what he is hiding, and why —so that even the hiding is done by consent. He can then expect his men to take counsel with him for the benefit of the whole. He must encourage them to criticise his own work, to point out any mistakes they think he may be making, and to make suggestions for changes they may think desirable. He must consider these, and either adopt them or give his full reason’s for thinking them inadvisable. He loses no authority by so doing, he gains it. As for the leader, his word is final, but he will find the men themselves enforcing his orders, instead of the more usual connivance at the evasion of rulings for which they can neither see nor obtain any reason. Further, he should take pains to explain to his men where and how they are serving the community in which they live, and where it would be the poorer for the cessation of their activities. (If it would be the richer, as is sometimes the case, it would be well for such activities to cease, and it is neither likely nor desirable that firms in this position should continue to flourish!) So finally he may attain his end, that at least most of his men may find all their motives and desires pulling in one direction. The desire to make a good living honestly, the pleasure of working with friends for a common object to which all contribute, and the by no means negligible, if too often neglected, desire to be of some value to the community. To held one’s head high as its benefactor rather than as its parasite. A very frequent contra motive—the desire to avoid contributions towards the undue profits of some unknown and hated “capitalist,” is best met by the disclosure of the exact share he takes, which will rarely be considered exorbitant. We think that only so can men be really content and that “labour unrest” and strikes are not caused by this point or that about which the men strike or complain, but by the internal dissatisfaction of men pulled in contrary directions by their desires, and ready by any means of “letting loose of conditions which become insupportable. As for the Works Council, our present method is to divide our works into sections, each of which annually elects a representative (all the men on the section being considered as candidates), to the Council, in which he brings up any matter suggested by or affecting his electors. The mere starting of a Works Council may do more harm than good, if the motive behind it is to allay unrest, or to attain any ends other than those I have tried to explain. Motive is all-impor-tant in this matter. A Works Council is merely a tool and it may he used or misused, but it is proving a good tool for our purposes.

Profit is not a man’s only motive—• not even his strongest, as a rule—as many profit sharing schemes seem to imply, and through which error so many fail! And peace and happiness is just as important in essentially non-profit-making concerns. We should not like you to think we have attained heaven on earth. We are all very human and very full of faults. So we have bur disagreements and make our mistakes. But few of us would now like to work under the old system, and we look forward to the time when something like our own will become more general. The day of the Dictator, howsoever benevolent, is assuredly over.”