SHOP ASSISTANTS’ AWARD

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 298, 10 September 1921, Page 5

SHOP ASSISTANTS’ AWARD

FURTHER COMMENT BY MR. CROSKERY. Mr. A. W. Croskery (secretary of the 'Amalgamated Society of Shop Assistants) mode some comment yesterday upon the reply of the Registrar'of the Arbitration Court to some of his criticisms of the •hop assistants' award issued by the Court on Wednesday. Mr. Croskery said that the registrar’s reply could be called both correct and incorrect. It was correct in so far as Buying that the Court had increased the minimum rate of pay to the sixth-year male assistant from £3 15s. to .£3 17s. 6d. per week. What the Court had done was to increase the rate of the sixth year assistant by 2a. 6d. per week, but as a compensating balance to the employers it had reduced the rate of the first and second year assistants by the same •mount, and the fourth year assistant by 7s. 6d. per week. "If this is what the Court calls an increase in wages, we do not understand what increases are," remarked Mr. Croskery. The rates fixed by the Court for assistants over twentythree years of age were lower than any of those prescribed in any of the Australian awards, which were brought under the notice of the Court. As late as March last the wages fixed in' Australia were: — Melbourne: Males, J 25 and £5 15s. per week; females, £2 10s. Sydney; Males, At 19s. 6d. per week; females, £2 15s. Queensland: Males, £4 15s. per week-; females. £2 15s. and £2 18s. per week. With the exception of Queensland, the •hove wages were payable at twenty-throe years of age. The wages fixed in the recent Wellington case were so disgracefully low that it ’was no wonder that workers lost faith in tho Court. Today the flat rate for grocers’ assistants was £4 2s. Gd., as compared with the shop assistants ,£3 17s. 6d., and shop butchers received £4 15s. It • mattered not from which angle the matter was viewed, it could not be held that the shop assistants had had a just hearing from tho Court. RESOLUTION OF PROTEST. ■ ’’ A meeting of the executive of / the Amalgamated Society of 'Shop Assistants carried tho following resolution: "That this meeting enters its most emphatic protest against the award recently is•ued by the Court, and declares that this award proves that we have nothing to expect of a satisfactory nature from that tribunal as n.t present constituted.”