FIRST TEST OF NEW SCHEME

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23202, 13 December 1940, Page 8

FIRST TEST OF NEW SCHEME

WORKS EFFICIENCY COUNCILS DISPUTE AT BELFAST The first test of the works efficiency councils agreed upon by both parties in the freezing industry has been made this week. As soon as killing for the season was begun at T. Borthwick and Sons’ Belfast works a dispute arose, it is reported, over the failure of the company to engage a man employed When asked yesterday to confirm the reports, Mr H. G. Kilpatrick, secretary of the Canterbury Freezing Workers’ and Related Trades Union, declined to make any comment. No hold-up of killing took place when the men objected to the union member not being re-engaged, and a meeting of the works efficiency council set up during the winter months at ’a conference in Wellington with the approval of the Minister for Labour (the Hon. P. C. Webb), was immediately called. Apparently no settlement was reached, the company relying on the management clause in the award. The case has now been referred to a national disputes committee in Wellington. Under the terms of the agreement setting up the tribunals in the works, the wages of the workers’ representatives were made up by the company for the time they were sitting as members of the council. The regulations governing works efficiency councils in the freezing Industry were issued only last night, but the proposal to set up the councils was adopted at conferences,which ended in Wellington early in October. The full proposals, it was then stated officially, would be referred by the Minister to the Industrial Emergency Council for consideration of the question of embodying them in regulations under the Emergency Regulations Act. REGULATIONS ISSUED PROVISION TO ESTABLISH EFFICIENCY COUNCILS (fbesb association telegram.) WELLINGTON, December 12. Designed to foster greater co-opera-tion between the managements of freezing works throughout the Dominion and their employees, the Freezing Industry Emergency Regulations, 1940, have been issued to-night, It is also hoped that the regulations will make for smoother running, and assist in the avoidance of delays. A conference was recently arranged between the employers’ and workers’ organisations, in which the proposals contained in the regulations were adopted, and the proposals were then approved by the Industrial Emergency Council. The regulations provide for the establishment in each freezing works of a works efficiency council, comprising representatives of the workers and the management. They also provide for the setting up of a National Council, the function of which is to promote harmony, and deal expeditiously with any dispute that may arise. Where an agreement cannot be reached on the matter in dispute it may be referred to the Arbitration Court for decision.