SHEARERS' RATES

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 75, 26 September 1916, Page 8

SHEARERS' RATES

A HAWKES BAY DISPUTE.

(BY TBLIGRAPH.—PRBSS ASSOCIATION.)

HASTINGS, This Day. Shearing operations were to have started to-day at the Te Mata station. The men state that the manager offered 22s 6d per hundred, and that after discussion they refused to accept less than 255. The manager states that he offered £1 and 2s 6d war bonus, and that if the award fixed 25s later they would be paid that amount for the sheep shorn. The offer was refused, and the sheep were turned out in the paddocks.

Information in regard to the prospects of the shearing season was given to a 'Post reporter to-day by Mr. C. Grayndler, general secretary of the Agricultural and Pastoral ' Workers' Union. Mr. Grayndler has been attending meetings of shearers in all parts of the Dominion, from Dunedin to Urewera. The. feeling of workers employed in the shearing. industry, he said, was one of determination to obtain the rates decided on by the A.P.U. Conference. The Maoris in the Poverty Bay district were even less inclined than Europeans to accept employment at a , lower rate. They had their homes and sections of land, and were not compelled by circumstances to go to sheds unless the pay was favourable. Many' employers recognised that the demands were fair, and,, were already engaging workers at the rates specified. TThis applied to sheds in Dannevirke, Hastings, Gisborne, and Wairarapa districts, as well as the South Island. Mr. Grayndler added that he had received several letters from Australia stating that few shearers! would be making the trip this year in view of the scarcity of men on the other side .of the Tasman.1 Even at 30s a hundred, and £3 a week for shed hands, all the men wanted could not be found. Owing to strikes and bad weather, also, the Australian season was later than usual.