[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—In your leading
article you ask for more light on the engineering dispute and for definite cases to illustrate what employers mean by "managerial functions." The individual employer feels diffidence in coming forward with his instances and interpretations, but so long as it can be said that the public is ignorant of the issues it is surely incumbent on anyone who can throw light on the subject to offer his contri- bution. I therefore ask leave to place before your readers two incidents which seem to me to illustrate the employers' case. The first incident occurred in my own works. It was necessary, in the course of a rearrangement of the machine shop, to move a number of machines and re-erect them in different positions. This could not be done while the shop was running because it would be very dangerous, if not impossible, to take down and re-erect overhead driving gear in the midst of belts and pulleys in motion. It was therefore decided that the machines should be moved one or two at a time after working hours by a small gang of men, all of whom were very willing to work overtime, and instructions were issued accordingly. These instructions were countermanded by orders from the Union. No overtime must be worked. The men voluntarily circumvented the Union official, and actually put in some hours of overtime, but one of them was convicted of working overtime and fined.
- Eventually the alterations had to be completed during working hours by shutting down the machine shop and sus- pending the machine men, greatly to their disgust. Most of them were operating machines that had not to be moved, and need not have been stopped at all. This was a clear case of interference with managerial functions, injuring the firm, the men who should have worked overtime, and those who were needlessly suspended, and benefiting nobody at all. But it was far more than that. The instructions were issued by those who had undertaken the responsibility of conducting a business in which not only their own capital, but that of the public, was involved, and who were qualified by long years of experience to exercise the functions of management. These instructions were countermanded by men who were irresponsible, without qualifications for business management, ignorant of the special reasons which rendered the instructions necesary. They may or may not have been dominated, as are so many Trade Union branches, by some of those individuals who hold that the capitalist system should be destroyed, and that the readiest means to this end is the. ruin of the individual employer. At the best they were outsiders who knew nothing of the business and were not interested in its success or failure.
My second instance is not taken from my own experience, but from a manifesto issued by the Union. A firm decided to put a certain department on overtime. Representations were made by the Union that the required additional output could be obtained by engaging more men. This suggestion was found to be practicable, and was adopted by the management. This, in my judgment—I can only express an individual opinion—was a case in which the Union exercised its " proper functions," end, according to its own description of the incident, exercised them in a proper manner. Employers do not claim " that the
workers have no right to a share in determining the condition under which they work." These conditions, including over- time, have been the Subject of negotiation and agreement between engineering employers and workmen for twenty-five years to my knowledge. But employers do claim that the management of their establishments, subject to the agreement, that have been arrived at and to any representations that the workers may 'wish to make through the channels that have been provided for that purpose, shall be conducted by them, and them alone.—I am, Sir, de., EMPLOTER.
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