SHEARERS' DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 27, 1 August 1917, Page 8

SHEARERS' DISPUTE

BEFORE CONCILIATION COUNCIL

A Conciliation Council to-day considered the Wellington shearers' and shed■hands' dispute. The Conciliation Commissioner (Mr. W. H. Hagger) presided, and the assessors were: For the rmployers, Messrs. Ewen Campbell, H. (Morrison, A. Clark; for the Shearers' (Union, Messrs. C. Grayndler, J. Leyland, and J. Townsend. Mr. D. .lones acted as agent for the employers.

The Commissioner stated thai the dispute was rather an unusual one, in that it had been filed by two employers who ihad applied to join some hundreds of other farmers. He had looked up the ipoint as to whether this proceedure was legal, and found that it was. Mr. Grayndler said he wished to enter a protest, in the first place against the manner in which the dispute had been filed, without an application being made ■to the Wellington Shearers' Union for a conference

The main points in the employers' ■claims were: —Hours of work : 5 a.m. ■to 5 p.m., or 5.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with intervals for meals and smoking; on Saturday, 'to 4 p.m.; shearing rates £1 per hundred with rations, or 23s ■without rations; shed-hands' hours, during the shearing time and such extra .time as is required to clean up the shed up to 2i hours a week; shed-hand /wages, pressers and wool-rollers, £1 15s per week, or Is 2d an hour; or at piecework rates, as agreed upon; all other shed-hands £1 12s 6d per week, or Is Id an hour; cooks, £2 per ■week; cook's assistant, £1 12s 6d per week; rations to ■be provided by the employer in each case, or 15s per week extra. There were other provisions, including a clause making it an offence for the Union, or any member, to attempt to defeat the provisions of the award The Union counter-claims were briefly as follows:—Hours, 7.30 a.m. to 5.30 .p.m., and to 12 noon on Saturdays, with intervals for meals iind smoking; shearing rates, £1 7s 6d per 100; crutching 6s per> 100, 7s for crutching and wigging, or £1 per day and found; shed-hands' rates of pay, £3 per week and found; wool-pressing £i per week, 2s per bale, or 9d per cwt; cooks, £i to £6 per week; cook's assistants, £3 per .week ■and found.

(Proceeding),