GROCERS' AWARD.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1909, Page 9

GROCERS' AWARD.

• The award of the Arbitration Court in the grocers' dispute has been received. Most of the claims of the assistants were agreed to by the employers after a conference. The question of wages was referred lo the court, and after hearing evidence the wages' of assistants have been left as they were under the old award (£2 ss). The evidence established that the employers were not treating these as standard wages, but in most cases were paying more than the fixed minimum. With regard to the wages of other assistants, the following rates were fixed : — Of the age of fifteen up to sixteen,, 10s per week ; sixteen to seventeen, 15s per week ; seventeen to eighteen, £1 per week ; eighteen to nine teen, £1 5s per week ; nineteen to twenty, £1 10s per week ; twenty to twenty-one, £1 15s per week; twenty-one to twentytwo, £2 per week ; twenty-two to three, £2 2s per week. Drivers who are employed as drivers only, and over the age of twenty-three years, shall be paid not less than £2 7s per week for driving and attending one horse, and not less than £2 Us per week for driving and attending to two or more horses. ,If a driver drives one horse and attends to that and a change horse, he shall be paid not less than £2 8s per week. Drivers under the age of twenty-three years shall be -paid according to the scale prescribed for assistants under the age of twenty-three years. No youth under the age of sixteen years shall be employed in driving An assistant may act as a driver, or a driver as an assistant, provided always that if an assistant is required as a part of lirs regular duty to drive one or more horses he shall be paid not less than the wages payable to a driver for the same work. . , A proviso exempting Chinese and their assistants from the working of the preference clause was added. In 1902 the court refused to limit the number of youths to be employed in a grocer's shop, and the union had not made out that it was desirable to change now. Mr. M'Cullough did not concur in the award so far as it related to assistants' wages. He thought they should not receive c less than the drivers.