FIREMEN'S AWARD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 172, 23 July 1941, Page 8

FIREMEN'S AWARD

AUCKLAND UNION'S OFFER PATRIOTIC GESTURE The unusual situation of a union offering to carry on for a further term on its present award—and the employers holding that offer over pending negotiations for a Dominion award, had its initial unfoldment at the meeting this morning of the Auckland Metropolitan Fire Board. The Auckland union notified the board by letter that a meeting of its members had decided, as a practical patriotic gesture and in view of war conditions, not to seek a new award when the present one expired, but to extend it for a further term. Pointing out that there was a meeting of the Conciliation Council in Wellington to-day in regard to a Dominion award for firemen the chairman of the board. Mr. J J Kingston, said that, while the board appreciated the spirit of the letter it would rather stultify the efforts of the boards to secure a Dominion award if -the offer were accepted. They had agreed on the need for a Dominion award for some time and could not go back on it now. Mr. J. W. A. Stead. Government representative on the board, who is ?l s< { tjj? secretary of the union, held that the Arbitration Court had decided that a dispute existed onlv in 1«* Taranaki. Wellington, Nelson and Canterbury districts and that Auckland was not. therefore included in the present Dominion proceedings. Mr. Stead recorded his vote as the only dissentient to a motion, proposed by Mr. Kingston, that the unions offer be held over for consideration after the conclusion of the present negotiations.