UNIONS FAVOUR RATIONING OF WORK

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19258, 20 December 1930, Page 11

UNIONS FAVOUR RATIONING OF WORK

SYSTEM ADOPTED BY MANY CITY EMPLOYERS. Though in New South Wales, under the Labour Government, rationing of work will in future be prohibited except by the Crown, Christchurch trade unions which have had experience of the system do not view it with disfavour. At present rationing is carried out in Christchurch to a fairly large extent by the engineering trades, and in a number of other industries it has been applied at the request of the workers. The official attitude of the unions in these cases is that it is better that the available work should be rationed among the workers than that some should be put off altogether while others have continuous employment. The Engineering Trades. Mr G. T. Thurston, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, said this morning that for the past five or six weeks there had been a good , deal of rationing in the engineering trades. It applied to the large shops and to garages and electrical work, the procedure adopted being to stand men off for a week at a time. The union was badly hit by unemployment at the present time, 200 of the 1200 members being out of w-ork. This total did not include the men who were affected by rationing. “The union is quite favourable to rationing, and I have heard no comment, other than in favour of it,” Mr Thurston said. “We take the view tha. it is better for men to get part-time employment than none at all.” All the men, he said, were hourly workers, and were paid only for time worked. In some places where rationing was not carried out short time was being worked. At Bedrock. The position in the joinery trade was explained by Mr E. C. Sutcliffe, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, as being at bedrock. He said that in most of the shops only the foremen and apprentices were now working, and in one or two cases the employment of the apprentices was proving an embarrassment. Under these circumstances it was not possible to ration work, as all the journeymen had already been put off. “Without exaggerating the position,” Mr Sutcliffe added, “I can say that from 20 to 25 per cent of the membership of the union is unemployed. One firm which had a fair amount of work in hand a few weeks ago carried out a system of rationing to the extent that it put the single men off for a fortnight and the married men off for a week. “If it could be done,” he said, “I believe the official attitude of the union would be that an even distribution of work among the men would be better than that certain members got all the work while other men of equal ability got nothing.” Arrangement By Drivers. One large carrying firm in the cit\* has carried out rationing of employment for some time past at the special request of the drivers in its employ. Mr E. Parlane, secretary of the Drivers’ Union, said that where the men themselves desired rationing the union placed no obstacles in the way, provided that the operation of the system did not result in injustice to other firms. The men had agreed to the system rather than see certain of their number lose their employment altogether. The employees in some of the city timber yards have also been sharing the available work. v Award Provisions. / The awards governing conditions in the tailoring trades make special provision for rationing of work during slack times. The shop-tailors’ award provides that during a slack season a turn-board shall be. kept in order that there shall be as even a distribution of work as circumstances permit, and similar provision is made in other awards. Mr J. W. Roberts, secretary of the union, said that there were not many girls out of -work in the trade, but a good many were on short time. In some cases factories were being closed for about three weeks for the Christmas and New Year holidays, instead of the usual ten days only. One had alre'ady closed down until January 12. The shop-tailors, however, were the worst off, as conditions had been slack for them for some time past.