BAKING TRADE EMPLOYEES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25363, 10 December 1947, Page 6

BAKING TRADE EMPLOYEES

—•—— STRIKE ACTION THREATENED

MEN’S ALLEGATIONS OF PAY DEDUCTIONS

(From Our Industrial Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, December 9. Baking trade workers employed by Stacey and Hawker, £44-, Christchurch, and by the Golden Crust Bakery, Miramar, Wellington, have decided by secret ballot to strike next Monday if a demand presentee} to their employers this week is not answered, by 5 p.m. to-morrow. The workers claim that the employers have made a practice of deducting sqms from their pay because* of their refusal to bake on Saturdays. They demand that this practice should cease. This threat of a strike is a development in a twb?year?dld dispute between baking trade employers and the New Zealand Baking Trades’ Employees' Union, whose members have refused since January, 1946, to bake on more than five days a week. The secret ballot taken at the Golden Crust Bakery js reported to have returned a unanimous vote in favour of threatened strike action. It was the first ballot of this kind taken in Wellington since the recent amendment to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The .ballot taken at the bakery of Stacey and Hawker, Ltd., the largest in Christchurch, last week, is reported to have returned a vote overwhehningiy in favour of strike aptidn. Members of the union in their refusal to work more than five days a ih^ ee £ ifJ adequate supplies can oe baked without working on Satur-r days, and they have recently refused a request from master bakers fpr work on Saturdays during the' Christ. it nd + Ne ' s t ft ar holid ay periods. For the two holiday week-ends they 5,SL req « ire en P u Sh bread to laft Easter e_day demand as th ey did Award Provisions The New Zealand Baking Trades Employees' Award issued a year ago and still in force permits baking qfi six days of the week. Some employers, though only a small minority, are reported to have followed the practice during the last la months of rosteritig workers for Saturday work, and deducting wages default. Action was brought by the union in Christchurch last March in an attempt to force discontinuance of this practice alleged to have been followed by Stacey and Hawker Ltd. The union failed, ft is said, however, that that action was brought under the 1938 Baiting Trade Employees’ Award, and that clauses contained in that award nre variefl in file award now operating for the inr dustpy. The secretary of the union, Mr A. A. McDonald, of Wellington, this evenr ing refused to comment on the developments. A similar attitude was taken by Mr G. Donaldson, manager of the Golden Crust Bakery. It is epnsidpred likely that® the trouble may spread to Auckland, but no action is expected in Otagp and Southland, where employers have acr cepted the five-day week practice.