EARNED £32 IN FORTNIGHT

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 259, 29 July 1941, Page 10

EARNED £32 IN FORTNIGHT

Freezer Worker On Wharf

EVIDENCE BEFORE APPEAL

BOARD

A waterside worker who earned £l5 5/8 last week, £l7 in the preceding week and who had averaged more than £lO a week for the past six weeks, was an appellant on the grounds of public interest before the No. 4 Armed Forces Appeal Board in Wellington yesterday. He was a freezer worker, David Stewart. He said, after detailing bis recent earnings, that he received 3/4 an hour ordinary rate, 4/9 for work l>etween 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., and t/6 an hour for Sunday work. He had worked nearly every day for the past six weeks, including Sunday and at night, up to 12 hours daily. As a freezer, he did work that older and less fit men could not do. He was not proceeding with bis conscientious appeal as after what he had seen, he felt he had no chance with it. A previous appeal of his against territorial service was dismissed, and he had subsequently done three months’ training as well as being a month off work on compensation. Mr. C. 0. Bell, Crown representative: So they were able to do without you for four months this year. Thomas Neill, secretary of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union, said be was there as a witness only. Because of some misunderstanding an appeal had not been lodged by the union for Stewart, but the general position was being gone into. He asked for an adjournment in Stewart’s case. The calling up of such hands as freezer hands tjyas of great concern to the union, which was just as interested in the war effort as any other organization. It had come to the stage of extending hours and it might be that Stewart had earned big wages because of a rush of ships. As a freezer worker he would get preference but to take his recent earnings as an average on the* waterfront would not be a fair statement of the position. There was a normal membership in the union of 1600. but there were now only 920 effective deep-sea stevedore workers, inclusive of those absent ou compensation or through illness. Of that 920. approximately 65 to 70 per cent, were over military age. Older members were feeling the strain of the extended hours and it was fell, that for them these had reached the limit.

To Mr. Bell, Mr. Neill said that while the union was a closed one, on whom could the union draw to fill the places of younger members such as those liable for military service? He had never heard of an attempt to start a rival union. Those concerned were quite prepared to open the union when this was dictated by necessity, but it would be stupid to open it for men of an age who were not fitted to replace the younger men eligible for service. The Waterfront Control Commission would discuss the whole question shortly. An adjournment for one month was granted to enable clarification of the position regarding such appeals.