COOKS AND STEWARDS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 102, 1 May 1915, Page 6

COOKS AND STEWARDS

ARBITRATION COURT PROCEEDINGS. When the Arbitration Court to-day resumed hearing evidence in tho cooks and stewards' dispute, Mr. C. W. Smith, the Union Company's representative, called Charles H. Parker, chief steward of the Moeraki, who detailed the hours worked by stewards. In closing his case, Mr. Smith said His Honour had remarked upon the small wages per hour of stewards', but he would ask that the comparison be made not with shore wages, but with those of seamen, who, with harder work, received 8d an hour. As to overtime, if tho demands were granted it. would mean an additional total cost of £19,000 per annum, which, with all tho other demands, would entail an annual increase of £94,000. Their demands were quite revolutionary, and without precedent in any part of the world. As to hours, he urged that tho chief steward's discretion should not be interfered with, and that the shipping industry be not injuriously affected by hampering conditions. I The figures requested by the Court, as to tKe number of passengers, travelling annually on the company's boat*, were being prepared at the head office, and would be available on Tuesday. He would ask that thie information, be observed as confidential. In conclusion, he said the case was a most important j one, and he thanked the Court for its careful hearing, and tho men's representatives for the fair manner in which they had presented their caee. Mr. Carey briefly replied. Hi« Honour thanked both sides for the careful way they had supplied the Court with data. The Court would give its decision J as early as possible.