HOSPITAL DOMESTIC STAFFS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22340, 2 March 1938, Page 10

HOSPITAL DOMESTIC STAFFS

BOARDS ASKED TO MARE

AGREEMENT

CLAIMS BASED ON AWARD FOR

HOTEL WORKERS

Although workers in hospitals are not covered by the Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation Act, exemption being granted the boards on the ground that the institutions are not used for pecuniary gain, an effort, which the Canterbury branch of the Federation of Labour believes will prove successful, will be made shortly to provide an agreement on wages and conditions of employment between the domestic staffs and the boards in the province. “We are making a start in the South Island with Canterbury to follow the lead given by the Auckland, Taranaki, and Hawera boards, which have an agreement with the workers,” said Mr R. A. Brooks, the secretary of the Federation, yesterday. Within the last two years, conditions of employment had improved for the domestic workers in hospitals, and, while such institutions were outside the scope of the Arbitration Act, the boards had proved themselves sympathetic to the move to ameliorate conditions. That gave the Federation reason to expect that agreement would be reached with the North Canterbury, Ashburton, and South Canterbury Boards.

The demands so far prepared on behalf of the workers are based on those in the existing hotel workers’ award. By bringing the two classes of workers, whose employment was very similar, closer together, the changing from hospital to hotel work which had been so frequent in the past, would be stopped, said Mr Brooks.