HARBOUR BOARD WORKERS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25178, 8 May 1947, Page 5

HARBOUR BOARD WORKERS

CLAIMS FOR NEW AWARD (PA.) May 7. Harbour board employees in New Zealand want a 40-hour five-day week. This was the basis of submissions by Mr R. Freeland, on behalf of the New Zealand Union of Harbour Board Employees to the Arbitration Court to-day. The claim is for a new award affecting nearly 2000 men in 24 different ports. Mi Justice Tyndall presided, with him Mr W. Cecil Prime, the employers’ representative, and Mr A. L. Monteith, representing the workers. The award was described as most complicated and involved. In pressing for the standardisation of a 40-hour five-day week, the union submitted that any work done over and above that should be paid for on an overtime basis. One of the claims for a wage increase put forward by Mr Freeland (with the employers’ counter-claim in parenthesis) was:— "Semi-skilled and/or regular general hands whilst employed on the following classes of work shall be paid in addition to their weekly wage the following amounts: fitters, labourers, blacksmiths' strikers, boilermakers, mates, 2s extra a day or part thereof (2s 6d extra a week), member of a pile-driving gang, 3d extra an hour (Id extra an hour), steelworkers 4d extra an hour (2d extra an hour), gangers 3s extra a day (le 8d extra a day), leading hands 2s extra * day (11 extra a day); in charge of pile-driving, 90 extra an hour (7d extra an heut), erecting scaffolding more than 12ft in height 2s extra a half-day (Is extra a half-dayj, sandblasting nozzlemen 2b extra a halfday (IS extra a half-day)." ft was intimated by an employees’ representative that the claim, which may be strongly opposed by employers, is one for labourers, the wages to be raised from £5 9s 2d to £5 18s 4d. The jwhtocate for the. employers is Mr W. J. CMlfiner. The Court adjourned till to-monow.