PUZZLED WORKERS
Sik—I was relieved to see the letter from " A Factory Hand in The Spectator of September 19th, as I have heard the same story from several sources and was afraid that there must be some con- spiracy of silence in the Press as no mention of it appeared.
A chauffeur of my acquaintance, a highly skilled mechanic, has been working for some months on aeroplane repairs, and until a few weeks ago complained bitterly whenever he came on leave at the lack of work and said that he did less in a week there than he had been accustomed to do in one morning till then. Shipyard workers tell the same tale. One man, working in a shipyard not far from here, told me that they had been t6 months in completing a ship of 5,000 tons, whereas be- fore the war they would have built one of 20,000 tons in the same time; he said that an identical ship of 5,000 tons was built lately in another shipyard in 15 weeks. The men worked nominally 62, though really 57, hours, and on night-shifts had to pay the night watchman to wake them up in the morning because they had nothing to do. From two other shipyards I have heard the same tale of long hours, high pay and lack of work; one man was told to work six hours over- time and spent them reeding, as he was given nothing to do. The decent men are seething with discontent. They blame two things: the complete inefficiency and lack of experience in the management and the system by which the management is paid a percentage on the men's wages so that slow working and overtime is to their advantage.
Possibly things have improved in the shipyards, as they have done at the aeroplane-repair place where the chauffeur I have men- tioned works, since the Parliamentary debate; my information was earlier. But your letter from " A Factory Hand " does not suggest this. Are the men responsible for this state of things members of the Fifth Column or menely its unconscious allies because of their selfishness or
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