WATERFRONT SPELLING

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25934, 14 October 1949, Page 6

WATERFRONT SPELLING

■ —♦ — EMPLOYERS WARN UNION

INSISTENCE ON CORRECT HOURS NEXT WEEK (New Zealand Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 13. Waterfront employers intend to insist on rigid adherence to correct working hours on the waterfront. Captain M. T. Holm, secretary of the "New Zealand Waterside Employers’ Association, said this evening that notice hed been given to Ihe Waterside Workers' Union that from Monday any worker not observing correct hours of work would be dismissed. A similar warning in June last had apparently not been sufficient, said Captain Holm. The employers required that men should be on the job during the prescribed hours of work for which they were paid. Time off for morning and afternoon tea is permitted on the waterfront for half an hour in the mornings and afternoons between stated hours, and with the provision that during these times a certain proportion of the men must be on the job. Abuses of the spelling system were stated in the annual report of the Waterfront Industry Commission to be worst at Auckland, Wellington, and Lyttelton.

COMMENT BY BRANCH SECRETARY

From Our Oxon Reporter WELLINGTON. October 13. The secretcry of the Wellington branch of the Waterside Workers’ Union (Mr E. A. Napier) said this evening that notice had been served on his union by the shipping companies that non-observance of the hours of work, conditions, or of the companies' orders would result in dismissals. Mr Napier said this would mean the end of “illegal spelling." that was, the practice which has grown up of watersiders* working one hour on and one hour off. as was done, for example, in freezing chambers. It would not affect the legal spelling, which was provided for in the award, such as the half-hour spell or smoko every four hours.