The engineering and shipbuilding trade unions have agreed to take
a ballot of their members on the employers' demand for the abolition of the war bonus of 121 per cent. which was granted to skilled workmen by Mr. Churchill. The employers propose to abolish the bonus in three stages at the beginning of the next three months. They say that they cannot give it any longer. There is mush unemployment in the engineering trade because foreign customers will not pay the prices which the employers hare to ask. Nine-tenths of the shipbuilders are now com- pleting the last orders on their books ; the construction of many vessels has been stopped because they are costing more than the shipowners can afford to pay. If the bonus is abolished and the cost of production reduced, fresh orders may come in. The alternative is an increase of unemployment. Engineering has compared the rates of wages paid in the Rotterdam and in British shipyards. Here skilled men (platers) earn 4s. 7d. an hour ; in Rotterdam the rate is Is. 7id. an hour. Here the men work only one shift of eight hours, and restrict their overtime to six hours a week. In Rotterdam two, and often three, shifts are worked in the twenty-four hours, so that urgent jobs can be quickly completed. These facts explain why ship- owners have been sending ships to be repaired at Rotterdam, while our repair yards stand idle, although British shipyard workers are the best in the world.
Previous page
