WAGES FIXED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 12

WAGES FIXED.

BREWERY WORKERS.

CRITICISM BY MR. PRIME.

PREPARING UNIFORMITY.

A minimum rate or wage.* of £4 17/0 a week has l>ccn granted employee* covered by the Northern Industrial District Brewers and Bottlers' Award in a new award issued by the Arbitration Court. I In- former minimum was £4 r> / a week. .Mr. \V. (Veil Prime dissented from the wages decision of the majority of the Court. In tli" memorandum attached to the award, Mr. Justice! O'Kegun states that the Court, recognising the desirability of a Dominion award in tlie industry, liad prepared for uniform provisions bv raiding the iniiiimurn in the Northern I lid 11-trial District. This was higher thiiii in (Hugo and Southland, in consideration of the fait of there being m> clas.-ilieation, but the extra 2/<i a week uas allowed without prejudice to the right to have it deleted should there be a (.-la-silicatioii hereafter.

His Honor >tates that Mr. Prime's digestion that the decision had been influenced by any but die considerations already set out was incorrect. Dissenting Opinion. Air. Prime states that he dissented strongly from the decision of the majority of the Court in both the Otago and Southland and the Northern" Industrial District awards. Jt had been evident for .some time from the largo number of dispute* which were not .settled in Conciliation Council that the parties to disputes did not feel that the Court had laid down a sufficient ly linn and definite policy. The decision in this case must tend to make matters »still more uncertain. He had assumed that the policy laid down by the Court in the Auckland HUgnr workers' case .in December hist would be adhered to, and that, where weekly wages were involved, they would be increased by ">/ a week above the !!>••) 1 rates.

"The departure from that policy in (his (use will probably have the ell'e<t of unsettling industrial relations still further, and union* will be encoura;»ed to continue to flood the Court with applications for larger even in those eases where 11 wards have already been brought into line with the pronouncements of last year," Mr. Prime continues, in nr-rinyr lhat stabilisation in industry can ln« achieved oiilv by freedom from the worries of new demands. Alleged Boycott Threat.

Mr. Prime alleges that after the Auckland dispute was referred to the Court the union obtained acceptance of it.-; demands in some quarters by threats of a boycott, and. if such action did not constitute contempt of the Court, it was at Wst. a blustering refusal to accept the decision of the constitution-ally-appointed tribunal to which the dispute had been properly referred. He contends that a jrrave injustice was holnjj done to tIIOAP employers who had refused to submit to threats of a boycott. The decision in the present case would appear to amount to mi approval of the adoption of unconstitutional methods.