BESPOKE TAILORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 226, 23 September 1936, Page 10

BESPOKE TAILORS.

APPLICATION FOR AWARD. FIVE-DAY WEEK QUESTION. Bespoke tailors sought a new award from the Arbitration Court yesterday afternoon. Decision was reserved. Mr. W. S. Moxsom represented the Auckland Tailors' Industrial Union of Workers and Mr. W. E. Anderson appeared for the employers. Agreement had been reached in conciliation on several clauses, but hours and wages were the chief matters still in dispute. The union sought a 40-liour five-day week, and a minimum wage for weekly workers of £5 10/ per week. Piece rates of 1/9 an hour and ten days' annual holiday on full pay were also asked. "We do not see why tailors should extend the 40-liour week over more than five days," contended Mr. Moxsom. The President: In our general judgment for the tailoring tra<ie we considered that work should be permitted on Saturday morning, for we considered a five-day week impracticable. ». Mr. Moxsom contended that the work under the shorter week would bo completed just as well at the end of the 40 hours on Friday evening as the work under the 44-hour week had been at mid-day on Saturday. Proceeding, Mr. Moxsom said that the union submitted that the minimum wage asked was not unduly high. A wage was sought that would permit a family of four or five to live in decent comfort with necessary clothing, educa-' tion for children, an annual holiday and provision for sickness. Mr. Anderson said that exemption was sought from this award for dry cleaners, pressers and dyers; in the rest of the Dominion, he said, these workers were under the clothing trades award! and the Auckland workers could be brought under the northern district lpale clothing workers' award. The employers, he continued, asked that the Court should incorporate in the tailors' award the hours of work set out in the recent judgment, in which a five-and-a-half-day week , had been fixed. They proposed further a minimum wage for weekly workers of £4 17/6. "The bespoke trade cannot possibly carry on unless it reorganises and brings doipn its costs," said Mr. Anderson, arguing the necessity for provision for the use of a, team system in. the work.