BUS STOPPAGE ON SEPTEMBER 8

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27752, 1 September 1955, Page 10

BUS STOPPAGE ON SEPTEMBER 8

N.Z. Tramway Union’s Decision WAGE CLAIM TO BE DISCUSSED (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 31. Members of the New Zealand Tramway Employees’ Union will hold stopwork meetings on Thursday, September 8, to consider wage proposals. Trams and buses in cities and towns throughout the Dominion will be idle while the meetings are being held. It is expected that vehicles will start “running off” after 9 a.m. that day, and that operators will be back on the job to resume the service about 5 p.m. The stop-work meetings were announced in Wellington today on behalf of the national council of the union by the secretary (Mr P. A. Hansen). The council, at a meeting yesterday, decided to claim an immediate wage increase of 4d an hour, the rate to be •written into a short-term award based on the working conditions set out in the present award. Mr Hansen said that it was also decided to recommend to the membership that if employers failed to grant the claim, members should refuse to continue to work voluntary overtime, including work on the rostered day off. The Tramway Union has refused to meet the New Zealand Public Passenger Transport Association in Conciliation Council till after its nationwide stop-work meetings. This was revealed today by the secretary of the association (Mr A. A. Cooper). Minister Deplores Decision

“The proposed stop-work meetings of tramway workers are simply a case of a union, registered under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, refusing to carry out its obligations under the act,” said the Minister of Labour (Mr W. Sullivan) tonight. He said he understood a further Conciliation Council meeting had been tentatively arranged for next Tuesday, September 6, but the union had indicated it was not ready to go into Conciliation Council on that date. “If this is so, then no doubt a date can be arranged as soon as the union representatives are ready to meet again in council,” he said. “If the parties cannot settle this dispute by discussion round the table, then the proper course is for the matter to be referred to the Court of Arbitration for settlement. “By registering as an industrial union under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, this is exactly what the members of the union undertook to do. “I can see no reason why the normal procedure should not be followed in this case, and thus avoid an unnecessary stoppage of work and considerable inconvenience to the travelling publip,” Mr Sullivan said.