TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 94, 20 April 1904, Page 3

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

' ' '• , (By Industrial Tramp.) ' Tjke butchers" casa has been filed for the Arbitration Court. Tj, e Bootmakers' Union intend holding s social at an early date. Xhe last meeting of the timber workjis "sras a very large one. Tie building trade is very brisk, no maon men signing the books. The Auckland Painters' Union have donated a sum in aid of the Victorian coa j m iners' strike fund. One hundred and twenty firemen are jemiired to feed the furnaces of a firstclass Atlantic steamer. ■The furniture trade is brightening up - little. Some of the shops are putting their men on full time again. Within a mile of Johannesburg buildja£ contracts t.< the amount of over £2-000.000 *c being carried out. T3e Western Federation of Miners mn four provision stores of their own fa Colorado. The Takings amount to sbont £250 a day. The Canadian Government has passed a law providing that fair wages shall fe paid on all work in which any public finds are used. The general secretary of the United GanEeri "Workers of America, reports Qgf dnring last year 43,000,000 garments were made -which bore the union faieL Xhere is a woman in the Daamevirke £snfet who milks 15 cows night and Earning, kzmesses her horses, ana takes the w k to the factory, while hex hushaad fellows some other occupation. The timber mining industry throughout the North Island Is very brisk. The can hardly cope -with the demandOne of the most interesting things in the United States is the metamorphosis of a British -working man into an fllffl""' JI " working man. It takes about s year —no longer. At first he is slow; he seems to crawl: he likes to rest and look about; if there is anything to be brought, it is brought satniteringly. But Ac inevitable change comes He gets the yellow out of his eye, anh he "gets a on:~ elasticity comes into his SF-seles, and in 12 months he is a hustkr.—American ExchangeThe case submitted by the Carters' | Trian. for the consideration of the Ar- : titration Court includes the following demaacs: That competent general carters be paid the following niiiiimum. rate oi wags —for those driving and attending one horse, a minimum weekly wage oi £25/; for those driving and attending two horses, a minimum weekly wage oi £2 9/; for those driving and attending 'hree horses, a inirimum weekly trage of £2 12/. Casual carters shall he paid at the rate of 1/3 pei hour. Overtime for genr-al carters shall be satd for at the rate of 1/6 per hour, jvertime to be calculated upon and paid for any -work in any one day before 7.30 a-m. or after o pjn., except on Saturieys, when overtime shall count before 7.30 a-m. or after 12 noon. The term general carter shall apply to all carters tad drivers, save those who are engaged far the following trades or callings— bakers, aerated water manufacturers, sad butchers. Employers of general enters may. .by agreement with their carters, provide thera -with suitable board and lodging, and. in such case, the minimum wage to be paid to such carters shall "be a sum not less than £ 1 8/ per Week for a driver of one horse, £ 1 12/ per week for a driver of two horses, and £1 15/ per week for a driver of three horses. Preference of employment to be given to members of the Auckland Carters' Industrial Union of Workers. This award shall cover and extend to all employers carrying on business within a radius of 20 miles of the General Post Office. The Federal High Court has upset the ruling of the New South Wales Arbitration Court (upheld by the Supreme Court) in which a butcher was fined for keeping his shop open after the hours fixed by the Arbitration Court's award. Thus we have th-; High. Court ever-riding a State Act which provides that the proceedings of the Arbitration Court shall not be removed to, or challenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed, or called into question " by any Coxrrt of Judicature on any account ■whatsoever." A new painters' a-ward was fixed by the Sydney Arbitration Court the other day, under which the minimum rate of ■wages for " competent -workmen" or "specialists" is to be 1/2 per hour, and provision is made for workmen not able to earn that wage being jpaid not less than 10Jd per hour under certain conditions. The week's work is to consist of 44 hours —an arrangement that tie employers previously agreed to. Boys working in the trade are to be j legally indentured for five years, and! apprentices are limited to one for every loa r workmen or fraction thereof. Other things being equal, preference is to be given in future to unionists. Commenting on labour legislation in England, ''Lloyds-"-" says; "It will only be by accident that the Mines Eight Hours Bill can come up for discussion again this session, all the places allotted to the consideration of this class of *£gislation being virtually occupied. As regards a bill to amend the law of workmen's compensation, to which the Gorerninent are pledged, the Home Secretary Ls unable at present to fix a day lor its introduction. The committee whom he appointed to advise him in the patter are hard at work, and have, it is understood, nearly concluded the takgg of evidence- They will lose no time m considering their report, one of the Points being to what trades the provisions of the existing Act are to be extended." In the King's Bench Division last sionth, the hearing was concluded of the aetioa, "Denaby and Cadeby Collieries ■ T - Yorkshire Miners* Association and arising out of the strike at Denary ilain. The plaintiffs sought to reaver about £150,000 for damages occapraed by the alleged conspiracy and il•sgal combination of the defendants. In Kunming up Mr. Justice Lawrance said fa e could not help feeling sorry that no had been found among the defendants with the moral courage to stand up v? als place and tell the men that when j-hey entered into a contract they must -t- He wished lie had seen any indication that people coming from the headquarters of the Miners' Association, instead of pandering to the passions of the l**, gave t'jem good advice. Rough and g£f a f the men might be. he believed J^- 1 - like all other® Englishmen, they gse 0 :«-n to plain and honest speaking, "*■ that it would have resulted in great ; r- * -ii tead of a great deal of misery. -C - a ". übsence of over an hour ; ■" IWT found for th»> plaintiffs on ail «« questions submitW -hem. The of damages, Ted for ar .

-New South Wales Public Service Board s report on the reorganisation of the Public Works Department meacs that 438 employees will be dispensed with and a saving of £124,960 a year effected in salaries and equipment. One of the peculiar features of labour laws this city (writes the "Star's" iSiew York correspondent) bas developed in connection -with a proposition that the city government should enstruct five new ferry boats for the service which it has taken over connecting Manhattan with Staten Island. An effort has been made to persuade the city authorities that these boats, which it is estimated will cost 2,000,000d01, and employ in their construction 1800 men for a year should be built within the city limits, but a State law crops up which provides that all municipal work must be limited to eight hours a day. If this law is enforced in the construction of the ferry boats, it will handicap the builders within the city limits to such an extent that they cannot compete with the builders in the neighbouring State of Aew Jersey, and consequently New •tork working men stand to lose about 1,200,000d0l in wages. A measure has been consequently introduced in the state Legislature to amend the eight hour law so that in this instance men may be permitted to work 10 hours a day upon the contract. The size of the proposed ferry boats is: Length 207 ft, beam over guards 70ft, breadth of hull 50ft, draught of water 13* ft, with twin screw propellers, one at each end upon a single shaft. Another interesting ferryboat project, though a small one, has been that at St. John, N. 8.. where a New "iork naval architect gave to the city authorities an estimate for a boat similar in design to the above to cost <o.ooodol. As there were no local facilities for its construction with a steel hull, he proposed that the work be done m Great Britain and the hull shipped out m sections, but the invitation to bid was not responded to by any British builders on acount of the smartness of the project. Finally an offer of a local ™ n ( !™, was accepted on a tender oi SO.OOOdoI to complete the work in nine months and the hull will be built in iJath. Ale.