ANOTHER “CO-OPERATIVE” TROUBLE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2450, 15 March 1909, Page 2

ANOTHER “CO-OPERATIVE” TROUBLE.

The trouble that has occurred in connection Avith the co-operative workers on the Midland Railway is of a type Avitli Avhicli one is becoming tolerably familiar. Briefly, the position is that the men on a certain section of the line had, on accont of tho nature of the work at that been put on day Avages instead of being paid by pieceAA'ork, as usual. They were gn;cn 9s a day, but after a time the officials in charge of the section noticed that the men’s output of Avork avas diminishing in a marked degree, so that, while being paid 9s they Avere really earning only some 4s 3d to 5s 7d per day... To check this display of tlio “Government stroke” it Avas decided to pay them so much per truck load of spoil, the price being fixed at fifteenpence_ per truck. This rate is the matter in dispute. The men declare that they can make only 5s 3d a day, which, considering tlie cost of living at Broken River, they claim is quite inadequate, and they urge that the rate per truck should be raised to 2s. The officials, on the other hand, point to the fact that two men put on to Avoflk at the A\ ; orst part of the face, proved that it Avas possible to earn 8s Id each per day. There, for the present, the matter rests. A number, apparently about one-third of the 120 men engaged on the section, have abandoned work, and have come into toAvn, Avhile the remainder seem to be more or less content to give the new rate of pay a trial. There has been the usual appeal to’ the Minister for Labor, and departmental inquiries are afoot, the result of which should become known in a day or tAVO. It may be shoAvn that the rate fixed by the Public Works Department is too loav, in which case. Mr. Hogg, one may be sure, will very soon take steps to have it raised. No one wants' the men to work for less than a Irving wage, but ivhere it is possible, as in •this -case, to exert political pressure, there is ahvays a danger of the country paying a good deal more than tlie value of tho work. That danger is the greatest weakness of the co-operative system, <and it supplies one reason for the costliness of many of the -public Avorks that have been, carried out m recent years.