PAYMENT OF COOK

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30555, 25 September 1964, Page 21

PAYMENT OF COOK

Firemen See Anomaly The failure of the Christchurch Metropolitan Fire Board to pass the 6 per cent wage order increase on to the Christchurch fire station’s female cook through the station’s central mess fund was a shocking anomaly, said the secretary of the Christchurch Fire Brigademen’s Union (Mr G. G. Walker). “To the best of my knowledge, the Christchurch cook and her counterparts in Wellington, Auckland, and Dunedin are the only people in New Zealand who have not got at least the 6 per cent wage order increase in the minimum award,” said Mr Walker. “Rather than see our cook victimised, the boys at the station have ‘chipped in’ minimum rates,” he said. The union, said Mr Walker, had now handed the matter over to the Canterbury Hotel Workers’ Union in the hope of reaching a settlement. Mr Walker said that the board was quibbling over paying 10s a week. Chairman’s Comment When Mr Walker’s statement was referred to the chairman of the board (Mr W. R. Campbell), he said that the board did not refuse the 6 per cent increase to the cook. The board did not even consider the matter. The men, not the board, employ the cook. “By. agreement in conciliation, there is an award provision by which the fire board makes a payment to the mess fund. This is a fixed amount agreed to in Conciliation Council. The vital point is that the board is not the employer of the cook. If the boys wish to pay her the 6 per cent wage order increase, then that is up to them as the employers.” Mr Campbell said that the board had been most generous on the question of wage order increases. “We added 6 per cent to ruling rates for those cases, where we were required to add it to award themselves to make up the equivalent of the 6 per cent in her pay packet.”. .