408 DECLARED BLACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 127, 25 November 1938, Page 8

408 DECLARED BLACK

.(To the Editor.)

Sir, —It is a fact that there is provision in the Wellington Plasterers' award that the fixing of wire netting and similar material to be covered \yith plaster is considered plasterers' work. It is a fact that in no part of the world other than the Wellington district is such work claimed as exclusively plasterers' work and almost invariably the fixing of the netting is done, other than in Wellington, by carpenters. As both the plasterer employers and employees agreed in conciliation to claiming that this work should be done by them, Arbitration Court, having no objections before it, passed the clause.

The Builders' Federation had no knowledge that the clause was going through in the fashion it did or objection would have been raised, but when the present carpenters' award was being discussed there was a unanimous recommendation that, such work should be done by carpenters as well as other tradesmen. When the award came before the Arbitration Court, as the volume of work was so great, the Court decided, to postpone the discussion of any controversial matter and made the award without the provision asked for. That the work should be done by plasterers is not reasonable. They have neither the tools nor the equipment to do it properly or expeditiously. Some two years ago the foreman on a job of ours in ignorance of the provisions of the award, set carpenters to do this work, and objection was raised by the Plasterers' Union and by the Labour Department. Consequently the work was continued by plasterers, but we had to insist that these pasterers equipped themselves with proper tools, as not one of them had a satisfactory hammer. But even after they had secured the proper tools, the cost of the work, not in wages only, but in man hours was one-third higher done by plasterers than by carpenters and was not so satisfactory. After all, the public have to pay for (Such a state of affairs, and the Builders' Federation is determined that when the claims of the Carpenters' Union for a new award come before the Arbitration Court early next year, the whole matter will be argued before the Court, when I am satisfied that the plasterers will not be able to detain the exclusive right to fix this material and hold up work in the fashion they are doing. I may say that my company is in no way interested in this Albion Hotel job where the hold-up has taken place, but it is high time that the public interest should receive more consideration.—l am, etc.,

ANDREW FLETCHER,