Printing Employers Counter Claim

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31062, 18 May 1966, Page 18

Printing Employers Counter Claim

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 17. Bigger and more varied margins for skill in the printing industry were placed before the Arbitration Court today in counter- claims by employers.

The new proposals by employers result from a Court direction that it is in favour of larger and more realistic margins for skill. Mr P. J. Luxford, for the Master Printers’ Federation and the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, is presenting a case in opposition to Printers’ Union claims for even bigger skill margins. The union, represented by Mr T. E. Skinner, is also seeking to place more types of workers on the higher, skilled rates. Mr Luxford outlined the revised classification of skilled trades within the printing ini’

dustry prepared by a committee set up by the employers, and explained how the Court’s suggested core rates of £lB 5s for skilled men and £l4 5s for unskilled men had been adapted to the new classification in employers’ counter-claims. The core skilled rate therefore had a 25 per cent skill margin above the general hands rate. Those with trade certificates had a 28 per cent, margin.

He said the Court had already stated, in its margins-for-skiil memorandum, that “the Court cannot accept the proposition that because a particular job has some element of what was formerly a skilled job, it should, ipso facto, carry the skilled rate of pay. He said he also agreed with the Court that there was “no justification for creating untrue classifications and rates” and “no case for adopting feather-bed methods and approving skilled rates of pay for semi-skilled or unskilled work.”

Mr Luxford said employers had accepted the principle enunciated by the union that if a qualified journeyman was employed on semi-skilled or even unskilled work he should be recognised as a tradesman and paid accordingly. It was also not the intention of employers to devalue the true skill and responsibility of the bona fide tradesman.

They wanted to implement the Court’s stated wish that “rates of pay should be related to merit”

Mr Luxford contested the workers’ claim that its perforator operators should continue to be classified with the highest rate workers, because they “are not skilled operatives in the class of core rate tradesmen.” He also contested that all paste make-up performed anywhere in a printing factory should be the work of compositors. “If an employer employs a compositor on paste make-up then of course, he must be

prepared to pay the compositor’s rate,” he said. “But if the work does not require a tradesman’s skill it would surely be contrary to the Court’s principles relative to margins for skill if this artificial classification were retained.”

He opposed a higher rate, also, for operators of small off-set printing machines, because “the skill required in operating this type of machine is not comparable with the skill of a conventional lithographic machinist." A semi-skilled rate 10 per cent above the general hand was suggested for these workers, except where the operator was a tradesman lithographic machinist.

Mr Luxford described as unreasonable and unfair to future tradesmen the union claim that all tradesmen now in the industry should be deemed to have obtained certification, and be entitled to the additional rate of 8s 4d a week employers proposed for tradesmen with certificates.

Mr Luxford said that the employees sought to make all paste make-up performed anywhere in a printing factory the work of compositors and apprentice compositors.

But if the work did not require a tradesman’s skill it would be contrary to the Court’s principles relative to margins for skill, if the artificial classification were retained.

“The employees claim is purely an attempt to increase the roll of union membership by forcing these employees to join the union,” Mr Luxford said.

It was also an attempt to make the employers pay an inflated rate quite unrelated to the degree of skill involved, he said. Mr Luxford said the employers were willing to join with the union in requesting the New Zealand Trades Certification Board to set up a special committee representing both employers and workers.

The hearing will continue tomorrow.