H.—ll.

Training of Workers. Under the Auxiliary Workers Training Emergency Regulations 1941 (Serial number 1941/23) a Dominion Council representative of workers arj.fi employers and Government Departments has been established to supervise training arrangements. Schemes have been introduced in connection with the engineering and footwear trades, use being made of technical-school facilities. These schemes envisage a relatively short period of intensive full-time training, generally sixteen weeks, for selected workers who have preferably some previous knowledge of the industry. In each trade and town where schemes have been introduced local councils, also representative as above, have been constituted to supervise the administration of the scheme, while for the footwear trade in Auckland a special trade school, also controlled by a representative committee, has been established. As at July, 1941, 97 workers had been trained and placed in the engineering industry, while another 125 were in course of training. In the footwear trade 60 workers were in course of training, 40 of these being in the special trade school referred to above. The scheme is being extended to other industries as for instance the carpentering and joining. Waterfront Control Commission. * Following the establishment of the Waterfront Control Commission under Emergency Regulations (Serial numbers 1940/59 and 1940/109), and as mentioned in last year's annual report, the New Zealand Waterside Workers' award, also certain sections of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1925, were suspended. In substitution for the award an order of the Commission was issued on 6th June, 1940, fixing remuneration and conditions for waterside workers. Subsequent variations of the rates of remuneration were effected, as, for instance, an increase of 5 per cent, in rates of remuneration in line with the increase in wages fixed by the Court of. Arbitration for workers whose rates of remuneration were fixed by awards and industrial agreements. A separate report will be submitted by the Commission. Occupational Re-establishment. The Occupational Re-establishment Emergency Regulations 1940 (Serial number 1940/291) replaced those referred to in the last report, the main alterations effected by the new regulations being : — The obligation of reinstatement is placed on the employer by whom the worker was employed immediately prior to his offering himself or to his being called up for military service. The obligation is made applicable only to those employees who had been employed for at least four weeks immediately prior to their offering themselves for military service or to their being called up for military service. Provision is made that on reinstatement the employer shall not be entitled to dismiss any reinstated person within six months after such reinstatement, but in any proceedings for an offence in this connection it is a defence, to the employer if he proves that the employee concerned was dismissed for a reason not connected with the obligations imposed on the employer under Regulation 5_ The 1939 Regulations made it an offence for any person to terminate the employemnt of any employee for the purpose of evading or attempting to evade any obligation under the regulations or in the expectancy that the employee will or may be accepted for service in His Majesty's Forces. This did not, however, make it ail offence for an employer" to dismiss a worker after he has been accepted for service, but before he actually takes up his duties with the Forces. In the 1940 Regulations an alteration was made to cover cases such as those referred to (vide Regulation 8). A regulation was inserted embodying a decision of the Industrial Emergency Council to the effect that where more than one worker is eligible for reinstatement in a particular job the order of priority shall be the order in which they were released, but as the employer will subsequently be required to retain any reinstated person for not less than six months it is provided that when one such person has been reinstated the right of his successors to reinstatement shall forthwith lapse. A regulation was also inserted to provide that where an employee other than an apprentice is called up for military training—i.e., territorial training—as distinct from military service, the period of such training up to a maximum of six months in any year is to be regarded as time served under his contract of service in civil employment for the purposes of increments and annual holidays ; but during any period of absence from employment during training the parties are relieved of their obligations relating to payment of remuneration, performance of work, &c. Enforcement Action for other Departments. Inspectors of Factories are associated with the enforcement of the Price Stabilization Emergency Regulations 1939 (Serial number 1939/122) and the Citrus Fruit Regulations 1940 (Serial number 1940/51), this being undertaken in conjunction with shop-inspection activities. One thousand one hundred and forty-eight special inspections were carried out, and as a result of the Inspectors' activities 42 prosecutions were taken, involving fines amounting to £47 15s.

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