WAGE INCREASE FOR SHEARERS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 11

WAGE INCREASE FOR SHEARERS

EMPLOYERS’ ACTION IN AUSTRALIA

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 7. The Graziers’ Federal Council yesterday filed an application in the Commonwealth Arbitration Court to have a basic wage increase added to shearers’ pastoral award rates. Industrial authorities here said later it was the first time an employers’ organisation had ever applied to add a basic wage increase to their employees’ award. A Federal Arbitration Court decision of May 25 added 10s to the male basic wage. Such an increase must be applied for—usually by the union concerned—before it affects each award. Shearers who are members of the Australian Workers’ Union will qualify for the basic wage increase as a result of the graziers’ action. It was a reduction in the award rate that led to the current dispute in the shearing industry. The 10s basic wage increase would bring the shearers’ rate to £7 Is 6d for 100 sheep. This is only 5s 6d below the old rate in operation before the dispute which has led to a partial strike of shearers in all States. The A.W.U. instructed shearers not to work under the reduced pastoral award. In the meantime, the Federal Council of the Storemen and Packers’ Union decided in Sydney to ask the Australian Council of Trade Unions to call a conference of all affected unions in the shearing dispute. The Storemen ana Packers’ Federal Council said that at the proposed conference, a common policy should be sought on “black” wool—shorn at the new reduced rates.