I am somewhat astonished that the Minister should bring in this amending Bill without due consideration of the importance of its provisions. He should withdraw this Bill and do what should have been done some time ago—that is, call into council those men and women representing the industrial forces and discuss the anomalies and contradictions in the original Bill. We have been long waiting for amendments to that Bill and it was in the spirit of reasonableness and understanding that we wanted those amendments. What do we find now? One or two things which are of no moment are touched upon and fundamental things are forgotten. Take the section relating to fishermen. I do not know whether anybody who had to do with this Bill had any knowledge of fishermen. But surely fishing is an industrial process. Naturally, all the work in connection with fishing which goes on on the quays or in the factories is covered by the Act but surely the men who go out on a trawler are as much entitled to a decent measure of consideration as those who handle the fish when they come to the quay or those who prepare the fish for the market. Why fishermen should be subject to worse conditions than other workers, I do not know. If they were owners of their boats there might be some argument, perhaps, for different treatment, but where they are employees—and 70 per cent. of them are employees— the position is completely different. In some cases, they do get an allowance of a certain kind of fish, oddments and guts and things like that. All these are perquisites of the trade and have been recognised as such for generations. Why should not those men have a reasonable working day, and why should they be excluded from the benefits of the Act?
A question was raised by my friend in connection with continuous processes. We have been the victims of this since 1936 to a greater extent—I mean the Union that I represent—than even the milling or any other industry. I refer to the gas industry. The men in it have been working a 56-hour week since 1936. They get paid overtime. The Minister is aware of why we agreed to the present conditions. There is no reason in the world why those men should have to work a 56-hour week, except this: that it was argued by representatives of the company— some of them now in a very dangerous position—that otherwise there would not be a sufficient number of trained men to carry on the industry. We agreed, pending the training of a larger staff, that our men would work a 56-hour week. In this industry a man's life is at stake when carrying out certain operations, and the safety of the community is not secure if you have not competent men employed in it. Because of that, we agreed to this continuous shift—an unnecessarily long one—until such time as a sufficient staff had been trained. Ten years have passed since then, and nothing has been done to improve the situation.
We are dealing here with a private monopoly which should have been taken over by the public years ago. It has a statutory duty to pay to its shareholders not more than 8 per cent. After doing that the company is obliged to give a portion of the benefits accruing to it to the consumer, but the position is that at all times the company can take 8 per cent. out of earnings. It is a flourishing concern and has practically renovated its whole plant out of profits. Yet during all the various emergencies and crises that have arisen during the last 10 years the company has not had time to train a sufficient number of men who could adapt themselves to the needs of the industry. The men are still working a 56-hour week. Why not give them what the Minister has provided for other classes of workers, a reasonable week's work and time to recuperate from the heavy tasks they have to perform? Anybody who knows anything about the production of gas must be aware that the working of retorts is one of the most laborious and exhausting jobs that a man ever applied himself to.
The Minister is aware that we have an arrangement outside of the Act whereby these men work three shifts of 56 hours. Four shifts of 42 hours would be the right and proper thing to have. These could be provided at a cost of less than a quarter per cent. of the registered profits of the company, and if such a system were introduced you would be establishing decent and human conditions in the industry. Four shifts would mean that 48 men who are now idle in the City of Dublin would be absorbed in the industry. Under the Act the men are entitled to the same measure of wages that was being paid to them previous to the introduction of the 1936 Act. That is met by the men working six shifts and getting paid for seven. At present the men have their domestic budgets built up on a certain income, and depend on that. If you open the market to 48 additional workers coming in you naturally restrict their earnings. But why should we hesitate to do the just thing by those men? For the purposes of the argument, let us suppose that their total earnings prior to 1936 were £4 a week, they are now getting £4 12s. in consequence of working the extra shift. They also get additional holidays because in consequence of working the 56-hour week it is impossible to give them the 24 hours' rest that they are entitled to under the Act. No matter how you divide up the number of hours in the week or hours in the year, you cannot, where you have men on a 56-hour week, give them the 24-hour break that they are entitled to under the law.
It is time that the Minister took cognisance of that fact. The men are being asked to burn material that they should not be required to handle. They are doing so in order to keep this utility service going. The men's clothes have been burned on their backs, and they are enduring conditions that no human being should be expected to suffer. I have seen men working in the stoke-holds of ships, but in all my life I have never seen anything to equal the conditions which those gas workers have had to endure since 1938. They are such as no normal man should be asked to bear. While they are doing that, there is no suggestion of relief for them in this Bill. I want to ask the Minister, why should the Government be paying unemployment money to 48 men in the City of Dublin while we have here a public utility service which has room for them in the morning?
Their employment would help to relieve the present staff whose bodies are being burned. When a blowback comes in a retort, their bodies are scorched in the same way as if a hot iron were run over them. If the people are not getting a good pressure of gas at the present time, that is not due to the men. It is due entirely to the quality of the material that is being used. It is not suited to the job. It is slurry and not coal. At one time if anybody offered it to me as coal I would feel insulted. I suppose that at the present time we can get nothing better.
I think this thing might have been remedied, and I suggest that the Minister even now might take the Bill back and give the matter more consideration. It is well known that this thing has been going on for years and we have put up with this crucifixion, as I might term it, until we can stand it no longer. There must be some protest. I have, as it were, sat on the safety valve of that industry on Sundays and other days when there was a feeling that the industry would close down. The men, however, stood fast and worked like Trojans, many of them because of the appeal on patriotic grounds, and the only return they get is to be ignored in a paltry Bill of this kind.
Let me now turn to the position of watchmen. Why should a watchman be excluded from this measure? Are watchmen not to be regarded as industrial workers? If a man takes up a shovel to stoke a boiler in order to keep it going through the night, I submit that once he puts his hand to the shovel he is an industrial worker. If he does not keep the boiler banked up through the night, it will mean that other men will have to come in earlier in the mornings, perhaps one and a half or two hours before the work normally commences, in order to have the boilers functioning, in order to have everything hunky-dory, as we say, so that everyone may proceed with his normal work. There is hardly a watchman in the city who does not do some form of industrial work. I am aware that some of these men are working 84 hours a week. Is that a desirable thing in the 20th century?
Most of those men are beyond their normal working years, and then they take over the responsibility of a watchman's position. I might instance the case at Inchicore, where a watchman had a gun placed to his stomach and was ordered to hand over money. He refused to be cowed by the gunman. People who do that type of thing should be given sympathetic consideration. These men have very responsible jobs, and they are prepared to risk their lives and limbs in the duties they undertake. What return do they get? There is not a word about a watchman in this amendment Bill.
We have, through the trade union movement, been able to make employers recognise the watchman as a human being. I am aware of cases— and I brought them to the attention of the Department—where watchmen were working 102 hours a week. Even in the Dublin Corporation, where we have, I suppose, the closest approach to model conditions, the watchmen are not getting decent conditions in some instances. We have, I admit, gone a long way above other bodies, but there are cases where the watchmen are not working under proper conditions. Some watchmen start their work at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They may have to walk from Whitehorse Yard and go as far as St. Anne's, on the north side, a distance of three and three-quarter miles. The average casual watchman has to walk. He may have to go to Drimnagh on the south side or, taking the north side again, to Finglas, in order to carry out his duties. Watchmen have to protect the property of the corporation. They have to work probably until 8 o'clock the next morning, almost 15 hours' work. That work is done for 11/- a night, or 35/- altogether in the one week. The watchman does not get holidays.
The beautiful system that was introduced by this Government, the rotational system, is worthy of some reference. There are men working on that system in Dublin. They are employed for five days a week. Deliberately, by the policy of the Local Government Department, these men are allowed to work only five days a week. Why? So that they will not get the benefits of our legislation. The six-day working week would be much more economic, in my opinion, but they are not allowed to work for more than five days for fear they would get a holiday, as laid down in our legislation. Is that an honest way of doing things?
The same applies to relief work. They will not give a man a week's work because that would give him the right, after two months' work, to get a holiday. These unctuous gentlemen deprive them of that. That is the attitude of the gentlemen who preside over the destinies of this country. They forget that they are making these men dissatisfied, and dissatisfied men will not give an honest day's work. Any man who would do so would be a fool. Do you mean to say that if you put me on rotational work I would be in the mood to do a normal day's work when I would be aware of the deliberately organised policy to deprive me of the benefits that other workers are getting? The average employer gives his workman six days' work, and that workman gets the benefit of our legislation. When you look at the situation squarely, you realise what a stupid, foolish, uneconomic proposition it is to deprive men of the benefits to which they are entitled.
Take the position of dockers in this country. Is it not peculiar that the dockers are deprived of a holiday? There is no one in the Government or in the judiciary who can find a remedy, who can create the position whereby a casual docker will get what he is entitled to, a week's holiday. The dockers work long hours, sometimes they work continuously for 30 hours, but they get no holidays. I should like to draw attention to a case that was brought up in the courts. The Government brought the case to test whether a docker was entitled to a week's holiday. It was a most extraordinary action. The man who was brought up had worked one and half years in the one year—he had worked more than 500 hours' overtime. These men are remarkable in many ways. They work almost to the point of destruction of their physical powers; as long as there is work there they will do it. The man who was brought up on the test case had worked 584 hours' overtime. I would have said to that man: "Look here, you have put in a normal year's work; give another man the half-year, that other man needs the work more than you do and you should take a week's holiday."
We have working-men in the City of Dublin whose income from one firm totalled £581 for the year. That amounts almost to a Minister's salary. Alongside these men are others who cannot get a day's work. These are aspects the Minister has not considered. If he would only turn his mind to the proper regulation of industry and do away with overtime, it would be much more satisfactory. He should do away with the long continuous shifts. They are unnecessary. Do not allow any man working at normal industry to work overtime until every unemployed man is absorbed. Surely that is the proper Christian ideal. Let us recollect that the man in the vineyard who went in at the eleventh hour got as much as the man who went in the first hour. What is the position here to-day? In this era of Christian civilisation one man gets all the work—more than he can do— while another man cannot get an opportunity to earn a loaf of bread— can get nothing, in fact, except by way of home assistance.
The Minister might bring intelligence and co-ordination to the control of industry and in 24 hours we would absorb a percentage of the unemployed. In this case there is a clear objective. Nobody with any intelligence would allow one man to work 500 hours' overtime while other men cannot get a day's work. Divide all the work in the industrial world and one-third of the idle men in the City of Dublin would be working to-morrow. Nobody would be injured. except that some firms would have to pay a little more out of increased profits. It is extraordinary that where overtime is worked there are generally increased profits. It is an absurdity from the economic point of view to have people employed for 60 hours a week when if we had a 48-hour week there would be work for extra men. If the 12 extra hours were taken off those who work overtime it would mean that three men would be working instead of two, and they would be getting decent wages. I do not know why employers persist with such a practice. It took years to get piece-work stopped at Inchicore. The shipyard was reopened in Dublin, thanks to the cooperation of the Minister.
I suggest that if the books are examined it will be found that a number of men are working overtime every week. In one case I stopped a man who had worked 94 hours in a week. When this firm opened there was distinct understanding on that matter with the trade unions. The best arrangement was made in the document that was drafted. Yet in a few months it was abused. The manager who was a party to that has gone to India. Those who are there now deliberately lend themselves to the curse of unnecessary overtime. Everybody knows that there are occasions when overtime is necessary. Work has to be continued for instance if a ship is about to put to sea or has to be put into a dry dock, but that does not mean that out of 400, 100 men should be working a week and a half or sometimes a double week, while there are others idle.
There should be no trouble about bringing in a Bill to make it illegal to exceed a 48 hour working week. This country agreed to that at Geneva. Deputy Dockrell and I agree on a 44 hour week in the building trade, and I hope in the near future that we will agree to a 40 hour week. I can assure Deputy Giles that men who are idle are willing to work but they are not allowed to do so by the mischievous methods of the Department. I invite the Minister to take back this Bill, so that representatives of the workers and the employers might confer to see if they could not come to an understanding on these points. I appreciate what the Minister has done for the workers. There is no doubt that the social reforms he has brought about are a most valuable contribution, not only to the health of the men and women affected, but to the future of the nation. Let me call attention to some abuses that occur. A week ago I found a factory where peerless products are assembled. No inspector had been there. The owner was working in a nice little den. It was a filthy place and the medical officer was called in. Girls employed there were paid 7/6 a week on a casual basis. Starch and custard powder are manufactured from potatoes, but if the supply of potatoes did not arrive work was stopped.