PAYMENTS UNDER WAGE ORDER
EMPLOYERS’ VIEW DISPUTED INCENTIVE PRODUCTION BONUSES (New Zealand Press Association) December 1. The interpretation by the New Zealand Employers’ Federation of the Arbitration Court’s wage order was disputed today by the president of the Otago Trades Council (Mr R. A. Hill). The federation said that employees who had been receiving bonus payments might now have these additional payments already earned deducted from the wage increase granted. “This is not a- correct summary of the position.” Mr Hill said. “Because where any awards make provision for incentive production bonuses, and workers during the period since September 15 have been able to earn amounts in excess of the minimum award rate, these amounts cannot be deducted from the retrospective payments owing to the individual worker.”
Mr Hill said that, although the workers under the Court’s order might have no legal claim to a 10 per cent, increase in future bonus rates, in view of the fact that the Government had allowed manufacturers to recover the increased labour costs it would be most unfair to any worker to expect him to carry on at the old rates in the future. The amounts earned had been for extra production and effort from the Workers, he continued, and if any attempt were made to take away from them the additional payments, it would only cause bad relations between employers and employees and legal action on behalf of the workers by their various unions. Mr Hill quoted as an example an award in which a female worker was entitled to a weekly wage of £6 8s and the worker had in addition earned £1 a week as a bonus payment since September 15. The worker, he srid, was legally entitled to receive a 10 per cent, increase on the £6 Bs, or 12s lOd a week, retrospective to September 15.
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Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27212, 2 December 1953, Page 12
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308PAYMENTS UNDER WAGE ORDER Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27212, 2 December 1953, Page 12
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