SUGAR STRIKE SETTLED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 193, 15 August 1911, Page 5

SUGAR STRIKE SETTLED.

WORK TO BE RESUMED. A FORTY-EIGHT-HOTJR WEEK. ALLIED TRADES COVERED. (By Cable.—Press Association. —Copyright.) (Received 8 a.m.) BRISBANE, this day. The Sugar Conference sat until midnight. The Minister of Works then announced to the Press representatives that the negotiations had concluded, and a form of agreement had been drafted and approved. These will be completed at noon to-day. It is understood that the settlement is on the basis of a 48-hour week, overtime to be paid only after nine hours. The settlement covers not only the sugar dispute, but any possibility of dispute in the various callings represented by the delegates to the Conference. Field work will not be touched in the agreement, the delegates withdrawing their demands. The delegates gave an undertaking fch tt ■work will be immediately resumed.

The demands of the Amalgamated Workers' Association of Queensland in connection with the sugar workers' strike were an follow:—(1) 8-hour day in mill and field; (2) modification of agreements (abolition of retention clauses relating to bonuses: (3) minimum wage: —mill hands, 30/ per week and keep, or 42/ per week without keep; field hands, 30/ per week and keep, or 42/ a week without keep far all field hands, cane-cutters excepted; cane-cutteT3,' 10/ per day without keep, or 8/ per day and keep. Under existing conditions, so the Association's circular runs, the mills work continuously from Monday morning to Saturday night, working two shifts of 12 hours each. In some mills men have an hour off for lunch during the shift, by taking turn about, and thus work eleven hours. In the fields the gangs work 10 hours per day, and upwards. In some districts the hours of labour are regulated only by the honrs of daylight. Unskilled 'workers in mills get from 22/6 per week of 66 hours to 27/6 per week and found. In Government mills unskilled workers get from 3d. an hour (paid on the bogus 96 hours per fortnight, wifti time-and-a-criiarter for overtime system) to 6d. an hour and keep. Wages in the fields range from 22/6 per week to 27/6 per week and keep. Twenty-five per cent is deducted from all earnings of contracting canecutters, paid back to the cane-cutter on the completion of the season's work, and termed a "bonus." The percentage is forfeited to the employer if the canecutter leaves his work from any cause whatever. The most objectionable stipulation is that the men are required to work ten hours a day.