TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 229, 24 September 1920, Page 9

TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

ißy INDUSTRIAL TRAM!' I I'XION MEETINGS FOB TUE WKI'.K. This Kvenins. Sept. -J— Ifrickhiyers. Saturday. Sept. .." — Bilkers' Special. Monday. Sept. -T-Talnters. Ttiesdnv, Sept. -S—Engineers. Wednesday. Sep!. Sl— I'urpeutcrs. Thursday. Sept. :tn — Knsinedrivers. Coopers Friday, October I—Sallniakers.

CARPENTERS. Some months back the Auckland and Eden branches of tiu> Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and .Joiners merged into une large branch, and. us one of the conditions of the amalgamation, decided to hold its meetings at Eden Terrace. as lieing more central and mure convenient lor the majority of the members. The test ha.* evidently nut justified its adoption, for at the last meeting of the branch a majority vote decided to revert to the Trades Hall as a meeting place. Included in the business for next Wednesday's meeting is a proposal to establish a central office, also a proposal for amalgamation with the Furniture Trades Union.

THE ARBITRATION" (,'OCRT. The Court, which opened at Auckland «>n September 6. for the consideration of a heavier list than usual, is now in its third week of session, and the unfinished business is likely to take the greater part of next week also. At any rate. Thursday, the 30th, is hooked for hearing a tailors' disjmto. In addition to oases set down for consideration in public, a very large number of decisions will bo arrived at in eases already heard, and in endeavouring to get these -decisions in order and ready for filing at the earliest possible moment, the members of the Court are violating its expressed intention to discourage overtime, by sitting in committee In tiie evening till 10 o'clock. In the meantime, the thirteen telephones at the Trades Hall are ringing to a merry tune, caused by impatient workers wanting to know from their respective pecretaries as to ''when that decision as to the May "bonus is to be made known." The limit was reached in a dispute that was heard by the Court on last Tuesday afternoon. It was an application for a new award, and on Wednesday moriring at nine a member of the union affected rang up to know whether the Court had given a decision in it. Others followed during the day, until the harassed secretary returned answers more emphatic than courteous. Job has always been presented as the personification "of patience, but theTe is a huge gap, not only in time, between Job and some of our modern union members.

AUCK_A>TD SATLMAKERS. This application for a new award (the first since 1911) reached its final stage on W__nesday afternoon, >vhen the Court heard argument on the only unsettled clause that emerged from the Conciliation Council, viz., the wages clause. The union representative asked for the skilled wage of 3/ an hour, plus Sd an hour bonus, on the ground that it was a trade that required a five years' apprenticeship, and was all hand-sewing, or "palm-work" as it is called in the trade, for machine work was exempt from 'the award. The employers' representative, on the other hand, held that some of the work was closely allied to the 6addlers' award, under which horsecovers were made by sewing machine. The saddlers' award prescribed 1/-1 per hour for this work, therefore the sailmakers should be satisfied by being placed on a figure similar to the- saddlers. The latest award to saddleTs was at Christchurch, in which 1/404 plus 3d bonus per hour had been fixed as the minimum for skilled workers. The question was left for the Court to wrestle with, but in answer to a request from the union for an early date for the award to come iuto operation his Honor intimated that the question of the basic wage was a clear-cut one, and there would be no difficulty in having the award (whatever it might be) coming into operation on the first Monday in October, as there was no objection from the employers.

THE THREATENED STOPPAGE. Once again the stoppage of the local coal supplies is bringing home to the people of Auckland the fact of our dependence on the coal miner. Last week the tramwaymen received a week's notice that the cars would stop running unless ft supply of coal came to hand in the meantime. That supply is not in sight at the time of writing, so that the prospect of our having to walk to work next week looms large. In addition to this, Our electric power system is also threatened from the same scarcity of fuel, and this will mean hundreds of unemployed turned out from factories of all kinds, and all this calamity is threatened because the miners at Huntly will not pay the increased railway fares between that Important township and the mines at Rotowaro and- Pukemiro. The miners have no fault to find with their last agreement—not a word to be said against it. They can earn up to 30/ pet shift under it, hilt their grievance is that the Railway Department has refused to tlevato Huntly to the same dignity as Auckland, Wellington. Christchurch, and Dunedin, anil have suburban fares within a twenty-mile radius on its nine mile railway to Pukemiro. One leading Labour official' declared to-day that the action of the miners in this matter meant the parting of the ways between the miners and the Transport Workers' Federation, for there was no sympathy for them. If this big stoppage occurs it has" been suggested that a mass meeting of workers affected should be held next week to discuss tho postion, and if that meeting eventuates it is certain that some straight talk will he indulged in. There is yet time for the miners to pause in i their determination to alienate the syin- j pathy of their fellow-workers in all, trades, who during the winter hardly yet j gone from us have been without coal, or have had to pay up to ten shillings a! sack when it was to be had.