STRIKE AT NAPIER WOOL STORES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 98, 20 January 1938, Page 10

STRIKE AT NAPIER WOOL STORES

Four Hundred Men Stop Work PROTEST AGAINST DELAY IN ISSUING AWARD Dominion Special Service. Napier, January 19. Following a lunch-hour meeting of employees of the Napier wool stores today, 400 men decided to cease work as a protest against the delay by the Arbitration Court in issuing the terms of the new award. The case was heard by the Second Court of Arbitration with Mr. Justice Hunter presiding, on December 8, but the court’s decision has not yet been announced. Pending the issue of the new award the employers have been paying the men on the basis of the old award, which fixed the hourly rate at 2/2. It is understood the men have no grievance against their employers but have decided to take the action they have done in order to register a protest against the court’s delay. The secretary of the Napier branch of the union, Mr. J. Murphy, declines to make a statement, but a meeting of strikers has been called for to-morrow morning. At the beginning of the present season application was made for a new award, and employers and employees met in November. No agreement, however, could be. raeched on the question of the 40-hour week and the whole dispute was referred to the court. Mr. L. C. Rolls, president of the Hawke’s Bay Wool Brokers’ Association, told “The Dominion” to-night- the men had no complaint against the employers and had decided to strike as a protest against the delay by the court in issuing the terms of the new award. That, he believed, was the sole cause of the men’s dissatisfaction. Relations between employers and men in tbe Napier wool stores had been excellent. Employers, as well as the men, had been' surprised at the delay in issuing the new award.

The strike is unlikely to cause any immediate embarrassment in the clearing out of wool sold at Saturday’s sale as no overseas vessels are expected to load wool at Napier until next week, and it is hoped the strike will be settled by that time. Nevertheless, considerable inconvenience and delay will be caused in getting wool ready for shipment.

MINISTER’S STATEMENT Court Will Consider Award Next Week ■ “I understand that the trouble at Napier has been caused by the Gourt of Arbitration’s delay in announcing tlie_award, which the men expected before ChriSlmas,” said the Minister of Labour, Hon. H. T. Armstrong, last night. “The delay has been unavoidable. I have been in touch with the members of the Court of Arbitration, and they have assured me that the matter will be gone into when the court- sits at Auckland on Monday. The award will be made retrospective, so that the men will lose nothing.”