STATE HOUSING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 225, 22 September 1937, Page 7

STATE HOUSING

CARPENTERS DISCHARGED N.Z. MEN OUT OF WORK OVERSEAS LABOUR EMPLOI ED. | l'i t Bif-s z\--iciniion. | WELLINGTON. Sept. 21. Fifteen Wellington carpenters wore discharged from the State housing construction job at Lower Hutt last Thursday and carpenters from Great Britain and Australia were kept on. The secretary of thn Wellington City branch of lhe Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. Mr. J. Moulton, stated to-day that overseas labour was engaged through an advertisement in overseas papers. One such advertisement in the Glasgow Daily Record offered a written guarantee of throe years' work. Some local carpenters had been several years on relief work at low rales and the housing scheme was not only intended to meet the shortage of homes but to provide work for New Zealand tradesmen. When the men were discharged he brought the position under the notice of an officer ol the contracting company in charge of the housing construction and had since received an assurance that they would be taken on again. The fact still remained, however, that these men would have to work with “the axe over their heads” all the time, while the imported labour was able to carry on under the guarantee- It was har/ on some of the carpenters, who hac had long periods out of work and wh< had a good deal of leeway to mak< up in their private economic positions It was only fair to mention the offei of re-engagement, but the distinctior between the guaranteed work for imported labour and the uncertainty of employment for local men was worth bringing under public, notice. A man on the job said: “I've no objection to the men from Home personally. After all, we fought side by side. However, there has been an industrial revival over there and they should not be brought out here to share in any recovery which is right fully ours.”