TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1928, Page 18

TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Tuesday, March 27.—Stonemasons. TXHBERWOKKERS' AWARD. As previously intimated in this column, the Auckland timberworkers' settlement has been held up pending the decision of the Court of Arbitration, as to whether the working conditions for the industry should take the form of local awards or an award for the whole Dominion. The application was. made by the Timberworks' Federation before the Court at Wellington on Thursday, and the decision is in favour of a local award in each industrial district. Up *9 the present, local awards have obtained, but the whole of the unions having become federated it was deemed desirable that one set of working contrary, are in favour of continuing the ditions should operate throughout the Dominion. The employers on the consyetem of local awards and opposed the application.

Mr. Justice Frazer, in dismissing the application, said the Court was asked to consider whether it should continue the practice of separate local awards or bring in a new system of a Dominion award. He wished to make it quite clear that the Court had never committed itself to any general statement in favour of Dominion or local awards, but had always been guided by the circumstances. The onus was on the party claiming a change to show the need for it. There was no reason to doubt that local awards had worked satisfactorily in the past and would so work in the future. If both sides had agreed to a Dominion award the position would have been simplified. The conditions were not the same all over the Dominion.

The Court had always sought in awards to make conditions and wages as nearly uniform as possible, but the employers in this case took up the attitude that, in view of differing local conditions, it was impossible to co-ordinate everything in one large award. The applicant had not shown that this difficulty could be got over and the Court would make local awards in the different districts. This would be commenced at once.

In several districts the employers liave already filed applications for a local award, and these having been held up until the Court has decided a vexed question will now be proceeded with before the Conciliation Commissioner. HARD CONDITIONS FOR CHILDREN. Some years ago, in accounting for falling off in the percentage of children passing in their respective standards at school, in the farming province of Taranaki, the reason was given that it was because of the hours before and after school, that were occupied by the children in helping in the work of milking the herds that they were reduced to a jaded and tired condition during school hours. But with the advent of milking by machinery this reproach to the butter province was lifted, until the percentage of passes at school compared very favourably with other provinces. But from a report presented to the Otago Education Board by its senior inspector, Mr. Stuckcy, on a school in a dairying district in Otago, it ap|>ears that the same evil is becoming established in the southern province. The report reads:—

"The pupils are orderly and well behaved, They are, however, lacking in alertness, and especially in the upper classes. Owing to their somewhat comatose condition their attitude to their work is rather passive than active. The attendance has been satisfactory, but the results of the year's work are disappointing. It is difficult to obtain answers from them on matters which have been carefully dealt with by the teachers, for the pupils as a whole are unresponsive. After thorough investigation I am unable to attribute this either to lack of intelligence or to faults of instruction. Many of the older pupils appear to be too sleepy or too tired to give concentrated attention to their work. It would seem that school is a place where they come to rest —not to work. Most of the senior pupils work before school for hours, varying from 3.30 a.m. onwards to 7 or 8 a.m. In the circumstances it is not surprising that the efficiency of the school is not higher tthan fair.

"I have the greatest sympathy for parents who are struggling to bring up a family on very inadequate incomes, but to allow children of tender years to work such long hours and at such hard work as milking, during the period in their lives jn which they should be equipping themselves efficiently for the battle of _ life, appears to me to be almost criminal." This report from Otago is not pleasant reading, and our Child Welfare Society might well take the matter up as part of their work, for the evil is not unknown even in Auckland. There is room for a Lord Shaftesbury even in New Zealand. OVZKTIME SATES. In the Federal Arbitration Court at Melbourne during the bearing of an application by the Marine Cooks, Bakers and Butchers' Union for variations of the existing award, Judge Beeby expressed the opinion that certain provisions in the award to prevent men working undue hours were used by members of the union for the purpose of piling up exeessive overtime rates. He intimated that a continuance of the practice might work prejudicially to its members.

Judge Beeby said that in an award made on June 20. last he was impressed by the long hours worked by the men. It appeared to him that by closer supervision ' arid better discipline material reduction could be made in the long overtime hours which the men had been working. He, therefore, provided that for overtime hours in excess of 14 a week a penalty rate should-be paid. The award was so drawn up that the clause applied only to ships at sea, and did not provide for the aggregation of hours at tea and when in port for calculating the excess overtime. The union, therefore, applied for a variation whiah would permit of such aggregation. The respondents, on the Other hand, filed an application asking that the clause should be struck out of the award. Their reasons were an allegation that as a result of Lf H *u"- on given there had been a defease in overtime hours this increase was beyond tlw •roployers, and was a Kr IL2 Sf Ti? lengthen 1 hWa * of work obtain »t (MX, h«w«„r, ~