SHEARERS' AWARD

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 1 September 1928, Page 10

SHEARERS' AWARD

A LABOUR PROTEST At a meetiug of the Trades Council held iii the Trades Hall on Thursday, discussion took place on a report from the New Zealand Workers' Union, which report stated that the Sheep- ' owners' federation had refused pointblank to discuss terms for a new award covering the shearing industry. The following resolution was carried unanimously: "This Wellington Trades Council records its emphatic protest against the re-enacting of the I.C. and A. Amendment which gives the power to the employers in the rural industries to refuse to discuss terms for a new agreement." It was pointed out by Mr. W. Brom-. ley (secretary of the Wellington Trades Council) that the refusal of the employers to meet the workers' representatives, or at least to refuse to discuss working conditions with them, was a clear indication as to what would happen if the proposals of the employers to substitute voluntary, for compulsory, arbitration, were adopted. Had the employers' suggestions made to the Industrial Conference been accepted by the workers' representatives, it would mean. that the award operating •in the shearing, industry would now lapse, and the workers would be called upon either to accept the terms made by the employers, or to take direct action to secure better terms. The delegates of the New Zealand Workers' Union expressed themselves at the council meeting as being completely cured of any tendency to accept voluntary arbitration in preference to the. present law.