TRIBES AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 255, 27 October 1928, Page 19

TRIBES AND LABOUR NOTES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP,) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK Monday, October 29—Bricklayers, W.E.A. Wednesday, October 31—Auckland Carpenters, Onehunga Carpenters. Thursday, November I—Plumbers' Educational. COURT HUNG UP. There are very mixed feelings amongst the unions over the announcement that Mr. Justice Fraser, President of the Court of Arbitration, has been appointed temporarily as a Judge of the Supreme Court, owing to the shortage of judges, caused by the illness of the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Skerrett, the recent death of Sir W. A. Sim, and the absence of Mr. Justice Herdman on holiday in England. This, of course, makes the judiciary short-handed, hence the appointment temporarily of Mr. Justice fraser. Owing to this there will be no ■Itting of the Arbitration Court until I February next, and a number of cases filed, and pending, will suffer delay. So far as Auckland is concerned, the Court ■Mrion to be held about December 13 be cancelled, and no doubt other industrial centres are much in the same Position. Some years ago, it was a common thing to temporarily transfer hi® judge of the Arbitration Court to ;~ e *OTk of the Supreme Court, with J ® result that disputes and applications *or hearings piled up. Many disputes were held up for months at a time, and in one that I have in my mind a period 1 " n ® months elapsed before a decision ***'B lv en. Both employers' unions and workers' organisations bitterly comFi *kmt this delay, with the result 4 m a ® end "Ifir1fir Act of 1910, section * '*) provided: "One person may be : Mme time a judge of the Court Arbitration and a judge of the supreme Court; but any person who flolas both of these positions shall give Priority to the duties imposed upon him *s judge of the Court of Arbitration.'' jjut this clause has been repealed by the vonaolidated Act of 1925, under which the Court is now working. The 1925 Section 78 (a), provides: "A sitting the Court shall be held in the cities Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch *nd Dunedin at least once in every three toonths to deal with any disputes which been referred to the Ctourt." But « has been held that this does not mean necessarily that not more than three ttonths must elapse between the sitting of the Court in any particular city, but ®nce in every three months will meet the case. For instance, the Court sat hi Auckland, in October (a few weeks October, November and December « one three months; and January, Feb"»ry and March is another three jnonths, and as long as the Court sits I® Auckland before May of next year, the.provisions of the Act are being complied with. Of course, the requirements of;; the Supreme Court must be paramount, persons awaiting trial have an malienable right to have their cases determined as soon as possible; but the jjnfans contend that it should be by appointing sufficient number of judges, and Jot always at the expense of the industrial world as Teprewated at th# Cmirt ** Arbitration.

LABOUR DAY IN AUCKLAND. Last Monday was Labour Day celebration in the city of Auckland, and it passed off very successfully. The weather was very considerate indeed, and, so far as the. modern celebration of Labour Day is concerned, it was an ideal day. The old order changeth, and at one time, 20 years ago, an Auckland Labour Day Committee always prayed for a beautifully fine day, with settled weather; but that was in the days when the motor car was practically an unknown quantity. Auckland has held no races on Labour Day since 1904, or thereabouts, and since there was no other place to make holiday in except the Domain Cricket Ground, with a procession to draw like a magnet to the sports, it was a common thing to find fifteen or twenty thousand people to the Domain, and gate moneys were large. There .is still no racing in Auckland, but in the South tliere were no less than 11 race meetings advertised for the Saturday, and Monday (Labour Day). But this is the age of motoring, both by car, char-a-banc and boat, and on what we used to rggard as a perfect fine day everyone who has wheel to turn, gets away out of the city, and small blame to them, so that great crowds on the Cricket Ground are a thing of the past on a fine day. Now, Monday last, was an ideal day from a Labour standpoint. Torrents of rain fell all the night before, Monday morning was showery up till noon, but the afternoon proved fine, with warm sunshine, so that it being too late to go far afield, the holiday makers flocked to the Cricket Ground to enjoy the sports and dancing, and generally to "make the best of it." Hence, I term it an ideal day from our standpoint. At any rate, the gate money this year more than doubled that of last year, when the afternoon turned out cold and cheerless. The crowd was good, and the programme of sports was good also, for some very fine finishes were recorded both in cycling and pedestrian events. The Highland and national dancing events were also well contested, and evoked great interest. Owing to the rain in the morning, the programme started late, and when nightfall arrived, the dancers had to repair to a hall, finishing up well on for ten o'clock, owing to the number of entries.

APPRENTICES' WAGES IN THE PAINTING TRADE.

The recent decision of the Court of Arbitration on the wages of apprentices in the painting and decorating trade has been discussed by the executive of the New Zealand Painters and Decorators' Federation, which has issued the following statement: — "The decision of the Court to reduce the rate of wages which has been in operation for the past four years, at the request of a few of the employers in tho trade, came as a shock to the members who have been most familiar with the apprenticeship question for a large number of years. "The wages which have been in operation since September 1, 1924, were agreed to by the employers and workers in the Wellington district. Not only did the Apprenticeship Committee agree, but both the organisations of employers and workers endorsed the recommendation of the committee after it had given the sub-: ject a great deal of consideration. "At the time the Act came into opera-; tion, April, 1924, there were not more than 30 apprentices in the painting trade in the Wellington district, and it was felt that, to encourage suitable boys to enter the'trade, better wages would have to be offered than those existing in the then

award; hence the agreement to pay the rates fixed in the apprenticeship order.

"The effect of this agreement has been the increase in apprentices from under 30 to over 100 in the Wellington district. The increase has been equally high in other parts of the country; in Otago, 100 per cent; in Canterbury, 100 per cent; in Auckland, 300 per cent, proving that the wages agreed upon have had th>? desired effect.

"The position now appears to be that, having obtained this phenomenal increase in the number of apprentices, some of the employers feel that there is now an unlimited number of boys to draw upon, and have made it their business to exploit this labour to the fullest possible extent, and to that end have sought the assistance of the Court of Arbitration to reduce the wages for future apprentices in the trade. The executive feels a gross injustice has been done to our trade by the decision of the Court, as had the wages operating been too high, the employers would have abstained from taking on apprentices. Instead of that, many have taken on all they are entitled to, as the great increases go to prove. The decision cannot have the effect of encouraging boys to enter this trade; on the contrary, it will have the tendency to return to the position which existed prior to the granting of a reasonably fair wage. The astonishing feature in the decision is the consideration given by the Court to the agitation of a comparatively few employers who have sought this reduction in wages; who, even, when wages were low, declined to take their-quota of apprentices, and shirked their responsibility to the trade."

EFFICIENT TOOLS. That a large public body does not necessarily provide its employees with the best and most efficient tools to do their work with, was abundantly exemplified at the City Council inquiry into the Murray charges on Wednesday. One of the charges was that City Council workmen were alleged to have done work for private persons, and when it was pointed out that the said men did their work in their own time, a witness said that some men who went to do a private job of scrub-cutting bought their own tools. The suggestion was immediately made that they had used the Council tools. "Not on your life," was the reply. "The Council tools were all right for the Council, but they were not good enough for us. We wanted to get the job done. It's the same on the relief jobs. I've been on a few of them, and you could sit on the picks for a week* and they wouldn't hurt you."