News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-06-08
nEARTH OF GOOD wORKMEN.
A Lack of Proper Apprenticeship
Legislation Leading to Vicious
System of Sub-Contraction and
Poor Work

A Lack of Proper Apprenticeship
Legislation Leading to Vicious
System of Sub Contraction ana
Poor Work.
From the New York Evening Post.]
The strikes which have recently oc-
Cured among almost all classes OF
workmen have not been the only trou-
bles with which builders have had to
contend of late. Chief among the
causes of complaint has been the GUS
tom of Jumping" work-that is, dlvld-
ing contract into half dozen parts.
For instance carpenter receives con-
tract for doing the work on house,
the specification calling for beams,
floors, partitions, stairs, sashes, doors
and trim-all the woodwork in the
building. In former years every part
of this work except the stairs would
have been done by one set of men, and
the material would have been prepared
in one shop. The new way of proceed
ing is to sub-let different parts of the
work-the beams to one man, the floors
to another, the studding or partitions
to another, the doors to another, and so
on. In this way the chief contractor
can tell Immediately what profit he has
made on the operation, and can engage at
once upon another operation of the kind.
The result is that the sub contractors
only aim is to do the work in the cheap
est manner that will satisfy the original
contractor he cares nothing about
making reputation, for he never comes
into contact with the architects or
owners, and if he does, he is bound by
his contract to secrecy concerning the
sub-contract. Many specifications for
bid sub contracting, and for that rea-
son the owner or Architects do not dis
cover that contract ms been Jumped
until some trouble occurs between the
contractor and sub-eontractor.
The chief cause for the "lumping -
system is that. owing to the disappear
anee of apprentices, a good workman
in any trade is becoming q rarity. This
leads to the dumping system in two
ways: first, there are few workmen who
know how to do more than one or two
things second, vast army of inferior
workmen are drifting about who cannot
command good wages, and consequently
have to work upon the cheapest class
of work, and those are the only men
whom the sub-contraetor can afford to
employ. According to old master
carpenters and masons, the disappear
ance of apprentices accounts for the
new state of affairs. One of the best
carpenters in the city, who owns his
shop and does large business, said:
1t is scarcely an exaggeration to
say that the race Of good workmeu is
dying out, and that were it not for the
immigration of foreign workmen we
should be at loss for men to do even
the commonest jobs. The best foreign
workmen do not come here at all, find
ing enough to do at home, so that those
we do find are not such workmen as we
had twenty years ago; but at least they
are better than the men who have failed
to learn trade here. The newspapers
say that men do not know their trades
nowadays because there is no such thing
as apprenticeship, and the reason we
have no apprentices is that the trades
unions will not allow more than one or
two apprentices in each shop for fear
too much competition in the future.
"There was an attempt someyears ago
to restrict the number of apprentices,
and believe that in Chicago the boss
masons are allowed but two apprentices
whether they employ five men or fifty.
But all such rules are useless here, be-
cause it is not in the shopowner's inter-
est to have any apprentices at all.
There is no such thing as a legal APP
premiership bond bstwaenA!a- boy more
than sixteen years of age and an
employer consequently boy who is
taught something useful in shop will
leave when he can get half dollar
more a week in some other place. A
boy will not stay in a shop for more
than year without pay; we have to
pay them for allowing themselves to be
taught trade. As boys are usually not
worth their salt in carpenters shop,
we do without them. [ have not had
boy for years and will not have any IN
til the law frames an apprenticeship
indenture which will ensure me some
return for the trouble of teaching ap-
prentices. The consequence is that
boys pick up tradein superficial way
instead of learning it.. Among the
plumbers it is somewhat different, be-
cause every plumber has helper who,
beginging as a boy, soon learns the
trade if he is bright"