PL—llß

"We should also point out that under section ]0 of the present Act joint contracts are possible, so that an employer who can give only partial training may be joined with another who is able to complete that training. Committees in the past have rarely been able to arrange such contracts. Nevertheless, so far as training is concerned, some of the advantages of the proposal for apprenticeship to industry could be achieved by a fuller use of section 10. There is no limit to the number of employers in any given locality who may enter into a joint contract to train an apprentice. We also recommend an extension of the powers in section 5 (4) (a) of the Act to cover joint contracts. Further, some complaints of limited training have come from apprentices who were, in fact, expecting too much from their employers. The apprentices and their parents had not informed themselves of the nature of the work " as carried on by the employer " ; they are not to be blamed for their ignorance, for it was no one's business to enlighten them. The general practice of treating entrance upon apprenticeship as merely a matter of collecting the necessary signatures on the indenture is symptomatic of the attitude of indifference regarding the nature of apprenticeship that has been prevalent amongst many parents, apprentices, workers' unions, and employers. We therefore recommend that the powers of transfer of apprentices and the provision for joint contracts should be fully used in cases where there is evidence of limited or inadequate training. When in these or other circumstances it is impossible to find a " willing " employer, then the apprentice should be transferred on the recommendation of the Apprenticeship Committee, but only with the approval of the Court of Arbitration and on the application of the Commissioner of Apprenticeship, to one or other of the Government Departments which train apprentices or have the power to take apprentices under the Master and Apprentice Act, 1908. We would draw attention to the fact that the principle of transferring apprentices to whom the Act of 1923 applies to Government Departments is already recognized in subsections (3), (4), and (5) of section 52 of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1941. (Very few of the " apprentice " trades arc not practised in one or other of the Departments.) As these transfers to Departments may at times bring the numbers of their apprentices above " establishment," provision should be made in the estimates of the Labour Department each year to meet the additional costs that the transfers may cause to the other Departments concerned. (2) Not only does the proposal above meet the difficulty of finding a " willing " employer when transfer is necessary, but it also provides a means of coping with the difficulties caused by any ceoession in business and the consequent effects on apprenticeship in the skilled trades, difficulties the solution of which must become a problem primarily for the State. In addition, it places on -Government Departments further responsibility for training apprentices. Many of them employ workers drawn from the ranks of tradesmen trained by private employers. For example, large numbers of artisans are employed on public works., but the number of apprentices trained by the Works Department is relatively small. It is not to be expected, however, that the transfer of apprentices to Government Departments will provide a complete cure for the difficulties which will arise should we experience a repetition of the conditions of the early " thirties." The suggestion may be adequate to ensure the completion of the training of a substantial proportion of the apprentices whose employers encounter financial difficulties, but it is not likely to provide a remedy for a failure to take on adequate apprentices in industry to ensure a satisfactory supply of tradesmen in later years. It is important that the number of young men entering the manual trades should not be allowed to decline, for a shortage of skilled men when business revives must be guarded against. The figures for apprentices given in the table in the Appendix show that the total numbers declined seriously from 1929 to 1935, and that the old level was not reached till 1940. All other considerations apart, the effect of this decline was that over six thousand potential tradesmen who would have been trained under normal conditions were not trained in that period. Is it to be wondered at that to-day New Zealand finds itself short of its requirements ? To ensure that an adequate number of tradesmen is always available, some kind of planning is obviously necessary. We have already suggested that the Dominion Apprenticeship Committees (with the assistance of information from the Organization for National Development concerning the requirements of industry) should normally see to it that a sufficient supply of apprentices is engaged, but if private enterprise fails to provide training for the requisite number, then the State, in the national interest, should step in to maintain the supply. If there are adequate national plans for various industries, then a deficiency in numbers can be foreseen, and the State should organize trade schools, administered either as extensions of the existing technical schools or as separate institutions. Alternatively, arrangements could be made with the proprietors of large factories and workshops to train apprentices in the same way as servicemen are at present being trained in General Motors and Ford factories. Obviously, when economic conditions improve, the facilities for making transfers could operate in the opposite direction to bring partly trained apprentices back into industry for the completion of their training. (3) One power of the Court of Arbitration, that of requiring " any employer to employ .... such number of apprentices as the Court may consider necessary to ensure an adequate supply of journeymen in the interests of the industry " (section 5 (4) (a) ), has not, to our knowledge, ever been exercised. Nevertheless, we do not think it should be repealed. Some of our witnesses urged that this power, or similar powers, of compulsion should be used to ensure that all employers capable of teaching apprentices should engage them. On practical grounds alone we cannot agree with this suggestion that compulsory powers should be used, except perhaps in a few special cases. The introduction of compulsion into the relationship of master and apprentice, we are sure, would not be generally in the best interests of the apprentice. We are satisfied that the needs of industry for skilled men can be met by other means. Only in a limited number of trades is there a lack of apprentices offering, and in some branches of industry the number of applicants is in excess of the requirements of the employers. (One employer who had been short of apprentices told the Commission that his difficulties were solved by a little colourful advertising). We think that the Dominion Committee for each industry, having estimated from time to time the numbers of apprentices necessary to maintain an adequate skilled labour force, should, in the event of insufficient applications, undertake judicious propaganda in the press, over the radio, and through other methods of advertisement, Much

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