BARBERS AT WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 9

BARBERS AT WAR.

SOME SHOPS "BLACK."

RESULT OF PRICE-CUTTING.

OBJECTION TO CHAIR-LETTING

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, April. 8.

A tremendous struggle is in progress just now in the hairdressing trade. Pricecutting, combined with the system of chair-letting, has produced a terrible "slump" in the business, and those chiefly concerned are doing their best to straighten the matter out.

The secretary of the Hairdressers' Union, Mr. J. G. O'Reilly, a well-known M.L.C., lias just announced the decision of his union to declare saloons "black" if prices are cut, and to picket shops guilty of either price-cutting or chairrenting. The other day a master hairdresser —one among the outcasts —who charges Cd for haircuts and 3d for shaves, explained to the "Sydney Morning Herald" how his system works. He says that he employs six hairdressers— who are thus incidentally kept off the dole—charging them 32/ each per week for the rent of their chairs. They provide their uniforms, scissors and razors; he provides towels, electric clippers, sterilisers and other equipment. He claims that each of his men averages 4/ an hour and makes on the whole a weekly wage of £3 11/6 to £4. This master barber maintains that his men are satisfied and that they are infinitely better oil than if they were on the dole.

Fast Work. To this defence the secretary of the Hairdressers Employees' Union lias made an exhaustive reply. He points out that at (kl a hair cut and 3d a shave the barber would need to work at an increditably rapid rate to make 4/ an hour j that if he made 32/ in a day of eight hours he ought to have a net weekly wage of £7 14/ a week in place of £3 11/0 or £4—and that in any case the sum credited to him by his employer is about £1 a week below award rates. But he asserts that the chairrenters are actually making only from 35/ to £2 a week, and that under sweated conditions. He maintains that the established price of 1/ for hair cuts and Gd for shaves is a 33 per cent reduction on former prices, and' that the public can still pay these charges; whil/ chair letting and price cutting njean sweating and misery for all concerned. Shops Picketed. The hairdressers' union, not content with verbal expositions, have appealed to Government for legislation; they have asked the A.M.P. and the industrial unions for help; they have declared the offending shops "black," and they have even picketed such shops as persist in these practices. Meantime a vigorous move is being made to establish uniform prices throughout the industry, and as a result of a largely attended meeting of master hairdressers this week, some progress has been made. ■Some of the recalcitrant saloonkeepers have succumbed to the threats of picketing, and one or two large department stores which have taken on cheap

hair cutting and sltaving a3 a Bide Une, have to charge the standard price. But the unions are mostly in earnest about chair letting, which one enthusiastic secretary describes as "A dastardly attempt to defeat the award.* All these "alarums and exclusions" have rathor disturbed the atmosphere of calm serenity—in which the morning sliave or the weekly hair cut is best performed. But to-day it is reported that the contending parties have agreed on uniform 1/ and (3d rates as from May 1. So that there is some hope of peace at last.