FREEZING WORKS DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 11

FREEZING WORKS DISPUTE

DOMINION AWARD DESIRED.

XBY TEtEGRAPH press ASSOCIATION.)

CHRISTCHURCH, 24th August. In the i Arbitration Court to-day, in the matter of a dispute between the Canterbury freezing works' employees (bacon, -workers' section) and the employers, an.award was made in terms of an agreement reached at a Conciliation Council. It was decided, However, to delay filing'the award until the aame case had been heard in the Wellington district. Mr. Sanderson (for the employers)' said that the employers in tlie trade desired a Dominion award. Complete agreements had been reached iv Auckland, Wellington, Taranaki, aiid Canterbury; the only districts that had not yet settled the dispute were Marlborough, Otago, and Southland. These districts had been instructed to accept the conditions of the award made in the other districts, but. the Otago union had failed to put in an-appearance when the Conciliation Council called a conference. It seemed regrettable that a Dominion award should be barred through the action of one union.

His Honour said that Otago was justified in doing what it did, and it -would be unwise to use the desire of a Dominion award as a mean of forcing an award on another district. Otago could not be dragged iv at the tail of a Dominion award. The employers were not a registered association in the Dominion, and therefore they could not apply for a Dominion award. It did not matter much, however, as the Court had made ■identical awards in each district. As for the Otago union, it did not come in for consideration. At present it was standing out, and was quite entitled to do so. When the dispute came up for hearing in Otago a good case would have to be put up to show that conditions there demanded different provisions from those of the rest of the Dominion.