GAS METER MAKERS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 7

GAS METER MAKERS

Conciliation Council Hearing Of Dispute 35-HOUR WEEK PROPOSED Conciliation Council proceedings in the Wellington Gas Meter Makers’ and Repairers’ dispute were started yesterday, in Wellington, before Mr. M. J. Reardon, Conciliation Commissioner. The employees' assessors were Messrs. G. Arthur, A. Logan, and J. M. Shear-

er, and Mr. A. Black was agent. The employers were represented by Messrs. ,T. A. Helliwell, 11. W. Thompson, and H. C. Hibberd. Mr. A. AV. Nisbet acted as agent for the employers, the Meter Makers’ and Repairers’ Industrial Union of Employers. _ The employees asked for a do-hour week to be worked between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., from Monday to Friday inclusire. The minimum rate of wages for meter makers and repairers was set out as 3/3 an hour and 3/0j was the rate sought for cast iron meter makers and repairers. Other workers hourly rates were: Testers, 3/01-; painters and packers, 3/OJI process workers, 2/10J; and labourers, 2/104. The youth clause asked that assembly and meter making (cast iron) workers should be’ allowed one boy to four adults, and assembly and meter making (tin plate) workers, one youth to live adults. ■*

The overtime rates asked for were time and a half for the iirst two hours and double time thereafter. Ten days’ annual holiday was suggested. A 40-hour, five-day week, between 7.30 and 5 p.m., was the employers’ counterproposal in relation to hours, the time of starting work to be varied according to agreement with the union.

The following were the minimum hourly rates of wages set out in the employers' proposals:—Tin-meter makers and repairers, 2/7; cast iron meter makers and repairers, 2/-1J; tesrers, 2/4f; process workers, 2/2}; labourers, 2/24. The proportion of youths to men in the youths’ clause as set out'by the employers was one youth to three adults fop assembly and meter making (cast iron), and one youth to four adults in assembly and meter making (tin plate). The overtime rates were

time and a half for the first four hours and double time thereafter.

The holidays set out by the employers, exclusive of statutory holidays, were the days between the evening of December 23, and the morning of January 3. Both parties to the dispute asked that the term of the award be for one year. Yesterday’s proceedings were held m committee and the hearing will continue to-day. v