NEW AWARD MADE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25437, 8 March 1948, Page 8

NEW AWARD MADE

MINIMUM WAGE FIXED FOR INSURANCE AGENTS

A new award, fixing the hours of work at 40 a week and a minimum wage of £6 7s 6d, has been made by the Court of Arbitration for the New Zealand Life Assurance Agents’, Canvassers’ and Collectors’ Union. Workers wnc use and maintain their own conveyances or those who use a public conveyance are to be paid Is a day and there is to be a car allowance of £1 15s a week. A payment of £6 is to be paid to workers rewriting collection books. Each worker will receive two weeks’ annual holiday. Employers wili be required to keep an account of additional earnings pursuant to the worker’s contract with his employer and all earnings other than the minimum wage are to be paid each five weeks. “The Court has fixed a minimum weekly wage, but it has not deemed it advisable to fix the basis on which commissions in excess of the minimum rate of remuneration may be earned,” states Mr Justice Tyndall in a memorandum to the award. “It was stated at the hearing, and not contradicted, that under the current agency agreements the gross earnings of some agents ranged from £5OO a year to as high a figure as £l2OO. The Court is not convinced that it should attempt to incorporate in the award, terms and conditions to safeguard such earnings ” In a dissenting opinion, Mr F. C. Allerby, the workers’ representative, said that he felt that the award should include all the important terms and general conditions which regulated the relationship between employers and workers. He dissented from the decision of the majority of the Court in respect to its rejection of the claims for the incorporation in the award of the full terms of the customary agency agreements, especially in view of the statements made by the workers’ representative, and not denied by the employers. that a reduction in commission rates was being contemplated.