LOCAL BODY DRIVERS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20906, 13 July 1933, Page 3

LOCAL BODY DRIVERS.

♦ WAGE REDUCTION SOUGHT CONCILIATION PROCEEDINGS ADJOURNED. A proposed reduction in the wages paid to drivers employed by local bodies in Canterbury was the main point at issue in the dispute heard in the Conciliation Council yesterday between the Canterbury Drivers' and Related Trades' Industrial Union of Workers and various Canterbury local bodies. The union asked for wages varying from £4 3s to £5 a week, and the employers for a minimum rate of wage of Is 3d an hour. After a statement on the policy of the local bodies concerned in the dispute had been made in committee by Mr D. I. Macdonald, for the employers, it was decided that no agreement could be reached on the major issue, and the proceedings were adjourned sine die. Minor clauses in the terms submitted by the employers were agreed on. The following were the local bodies concerned in the dispute: Akaroa County Council, Ashburton Borough Council, Heathcote County Council, Ellesmere County Council, Lyttelton Borough Council, New Brighton Borough Council, Paparua County Council, i Rangiora Borough Council, Riccarton Borough Council, Sumner Borough Council, Waimairi County Council, Levels County Council, and Waimate Borough Council. The objection of Mr E. Parlane, an assessor for the union, to the inclusion of the Akaroa County Council, on the grounds that there being no members of the union in the council's employ, the council was a disinterested party, was noted. | The assessors for the employers were Messrs J. Heslop (Ellesmere County Council), C. B. Thacker (Akaroa County Council), C. W. Tyler (Rangiora Borough Council), and D. I. Macdonald. For the employees the assessors were Messrs E. Parlane, H. McCaw, G. Smith, and L. Wilson. The Conciliation Commissioner, Mr S. Ritchie, presided. The Proposals. | The employees asked for, the following minimum weekly rates of pay:— Single horse driver, £4 3s; two horse, £4 Cs; motor-vehicle drivers, up to four tons, £4 6s; more than four tons, and up to ten tons, £4 10s; tractor drivers, £4 10s; drivers of night-soil carts, £5. Casual drivers to be employed at a rate of ljd an hour increase on the ordinary rates, a driver to be deemed casual if he was employed continuously for less than a week. The employees also asked for an annual holiday of one week on full pay, in addition to general holidays. The employers asked for a minimum hourly rate of Is 3d to motor or horse drivers. The holidays stipulated were New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, King's Birthday, Labour Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, work done on Sundays, Anzac Day, Good Friday, and Christmas Day to be paid for at double time rates, and work on any of the other holidays specified to be paid for at the rate of time and a half. The employers also asked the right to give the worker one hour's notice or one hour's pay in lieu of notice before his dismissal. It was agreed to pay overtime at the rate of time and a quarter for the first three hours and time and a half after that. Clauses governing the hours of work were also agreed on. In Committee. When the wage-rate clauses came up for discussion Mr Macdonald moved that the council go into committee. Mr Macdonald said that there were certain matters which could be placed before the assessors in committee, and which might assist in a better understanding of the difficulties on his side. Mr Parlane said that all that he would have to say could be said in open council, but there was no serious objection to the council going into committee, and he seconded the motion, which was carried. After hearing Mr Macdonald, the assessors for the union conferred privately, and it was later announced in the open council that it had been decided on the motion of an assessor for the union, that since no agreement was possible at present, the council should adjourn sine die.