BOARD OF CONCILIATION.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXIII, Issue 1180, 12 February 1897, Page 3

BOARD OF CONCILIATION.

♦- __ The first meeting of the Conciliation Board for the Industrial District of Otago and Southland was held in the Supreme Court, Dunedin on the 4th inst. All the members of the board were present — viz* : Mr W. A. Sim (president), Mr G. P. Farquhar, Mr R. Ferguson, Mr J. A. Millar M.H.R., and Mr G. L. Sise. The meeting of the board had been called to deal with a dispute between the Dunedin branch of the Federated Seamen's Industrial Union of Workmen, and the Union Steam Ship Cora pany of New Zealand, regarding which all efforts at an amicable settlement had failed. The claims made by the Federated Seamen's Union were as follows : — ' 1. LI per month increase of wages for firemen, seamen-trimmers, greasers, lamp-trimmers and ordinary seamen. . *2. Overtime rates to be increased to Is 6d per hour. •3. Holidays to be Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, and Queen's Birthday. Full day's overtime to be paid for any work done on any of the foregoing holidays or for leaving port on any holiday or Sunday. { 4 Mejnbers of Federated Seamen's Union to have pre-emptive right of employment when available. '5. Membership of Union Steam Ship Company's Benefit Society to be optional ; non-members to have equal right to employment as members. '6. Abolition of engagement of hands by any agent. Officers to select their own crews. ' 7. Permission for Seamen's Union representative to visit members on board ship. The board had also to deal with a similar dispute between the Union and Mr Keith Ramsay. After four sittings the board gave its decision on Tuesday in the case between the seamen and the Union Co, recommending the parties to agree to the following compromise as a settlement of the dispute : — 1. The wages to be increased by 10s per month as from the Ist of March, 1897. 2. Overtime rates to remain as at present. 3. Holidays and payment for holidays to remain as at present. 4. The company to have the same right of employing non-members of the union as at present, but to afford to members of the union the same right of employment as to others. 5. Membership of the company's benefit society to be optional after the 30th September next, which will be the end of the society's financial year. In the meantime the company may require the employees to join the society, and may give its members preference of employment. 6. The company to have the same right as at present to engage hands by agents. 7. The Seamen's Union's representative is not to visit members on board ship, but the company recognises the right of such representative to visit the men in their own time at any other place. The same terms were recommended, so far as applicable, in the dispute with Mr Ramsay. Mr Mills, on behalf of the Union Company and Mr Keith Ramsay, for himself acquiesced in the recommendations, and Mr Belcher, secretary to the Seamen's Union agreed to strongly recommend his executive alsotoacquiesce. Should he succeed in this an industrial agreement will be entered into between the parties embodying the above re-

commendations as the terms of service for the next two years.