NEW AWARD FOR LABOURERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27073, 23 June 1953, Page 11

NEW AWARD FOR LABOURERS

INCREASES IN PAY GRANTED

Builders* labourers, quarry workers, tunnellers, and general labourers in the Gisborne, Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson, Westland, Canterbury and Southland districts will receive wage increases retrospective to January 23, according to a new award issued by the 'Court of Arbitration. Builders’ and sub-contractors’ labourers will now receive £9 10s lO.d a week, an increase of 3d an hour, and casual workers will receive 4s 9Jd an hour, an increase of id an hour. The rates include payment for travelling time. The minimum rate of wages for labourers employed by firms bound by the award, will be £9 3s 4d a week, an increase of 5d an hour, and 4s 7d an hour, an increase of {d. an hour for casual workers. This clause applies to those whose work is other than that of a builder or contractor.

Labourers employed on bridgebuilding, or employed in quarries, or at stone-crusher feeding or on spalling stones will be paid £8 17s 6d a week, an increase of 6d, or 4s sd, an increase of |d an hour. All other workers will receive a weekly wage of £8 Ils Bd, an increase of sd, or 4s 3Jd an hour as before. Licensed drainlayers will receive 4s B|d an hour as in the previous award.

An added provision is that any worker having to work all day and having to continue working until midnight will be given eight hours off or be paid double time rates for all time worked on the second day. Shift workers regularly employed, for which a shift allowance is payable, will, after 12 months’ continuous service, be given three weeks’ annual holiday on ordinary pay. Any worker who is employed for less than 12 months as a shift-worker, in addition to twcTweeks’ annual holiday, will be granted an additional period representing the corresponding proportionate part of the extra week granted to regular shift-workers. The award will remain in force until June, 1954.