BOOT TRADES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 226, 23 September 1936, Page 5

BOOT TRADES.

i DISPUTE SETTLED. j ;new award for repairers. COURT TO CONSIDER TERM. ' Complete agreement, save for the term of the award, was reported to the • Arbitration Court this morning in the 1 repairers section of the Auckland Boot ; trades' dispute. Mr. C. A. Watts appeared for the employees, and Mr. F. Nicholson for the employers. Mr. Watts said a 40-hour six-day week had been agreed upon, with the provision, in the event of legislation being passed eliminating Saturday work in the industry, for a five-day week. In the latter case no work was to be performed oil Saturdays, and the attaching of tips, toe and heel plates, rubbers, etc., would be deemed a breach of the award, the clause to apply to all retail boot and shoe stores. A petition asking that one-man shops should not be allowed to compete with boot and shoe establishments where employees got Saturdays off had been forwarded to the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. The rate of wages Tor all male workers coming within the scope of the award was to be either 2/4 i an hour, or the basic rate to be fixed by the Court next month for male adults. Mr. Watts explained that the union wished to obtain whichever rate was the higher, the 2/4J basis to rule in the meantime. I Females were to receive £4 a week. Journeymen when engaged on bespoke work should be paid a minimum rate of Gd an hour in excess of • the ordinary rate. Overtime was to be on the basis of time and a. half for the first two hours and thereafter double time. Paid holidays would comprise Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Anzac Day, the King's Birthday and the union annual picnic day (if observed). Dominion Award Desirable. Mr. Watts said the union favoured a term longer than one year. The scope of the award would operate throughout the northern industrial district and would bind all unions, and also all members in that district of the Dominion Federated Boot Repairers' Association of Employers. In reply to the president, Mr. Justice Page, Mr. Watts said the union agreed with the Court that one Dominion award was more desirable than district awards. The Court announced it would make an order in terms of the agreement, making provision for any changes occasioned by legislation governing hours and by the basic wage, and would reserve decision in the matter of the term of the award. "When we fix new awards for the rest of New Zealand," the president added, "we will make them expire on the one day, so as to have one Dominion award."