Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1907 CLASSIFICATION OF LABOUR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8695, 1 March 1907, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1907 CLASSIFICATION OF LABOUR.

One of the factors that has tended to make the Arbitration Act unworkable is the non-classification of labour. The Act crudely recognises all workers as competent tradesmen, ignoring the fact that a considerable proportion of them are not entitled to that position. In the Civil Service, in the Railway Service and in the Education Department, all employees are carefully graded. If they were not so classified, the public services of the colony would be practically unworkable. The weak workers, the moderate workers and the capable workers are to be found in all industries, and it is an absurdity to place them on one level. Even at piece work, such as that at which our Petoue friends were employed, one man's labour may be worth 25s per hundred sheep and another's only 20s per hundred sheep. Good work is always worth more than inferior work, and should be paid for accordingly. But in day work, the necessity of classifying labour is more apparent. One man may be honestly worth 12s per diem, a second 10s per diem, and a third 8s per diem. An award of the Arbitration Court will, perhaps, fix the rate of wages at 10s per day, and thereby rob the good man of a portion of his earnings to benefit the less capable worker. The injustice of this is painfully obvious all over the colony, but the Act virtually compels an Arbitration Court to perpetrate this unfairness, and the worker to submit to it. During the next session of Parliament the conditions of labour must necessarily be reviewed, and svhen this is done, it will be impossible to ignore the necessity of a proper classification. As tilings are now, a youth emerging from an apprenticeship is given as high a wage as a veteran who has served a life-time to a trade, and who is his superior in almost every respect. We have out-grown the "straight jacket" in which a well-meaning Government placed our

industries some ten years ago. If there is to be a revision of labour conditions, it must be based on an intelligent perception of all difficulties which have hitherto been slurred over. The classification of labour is not the least of these.