STRIKE SETTLED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 14

STRIKE SETTLED

FORTY MEN AT WORK

The strike at the Campanile job has been settled. The single men who wont on strike are to be given work elsewhere, the married men who struck arc- taken back on tho job, and some forty men who started to-day arc expected to finish the work in about nine days. The job will still be a relief one, the Unemployment Board paying for four days of the week and the trustees of the National Art Gallery and Museum for a day and a half, in the latter ease without subsidy. The award rate is to be paid for the five and a half days a week worked.

The following statement of the terms of the settlement is made by Mr. P. Butler, secretary of the General Labourers' Union: —(1) Awaid rates of pay (14s Sd per day), to be paid as from the commencement of job, the difference between 14s and 14s 8d to bo made retrospective; (2) twenty married men to bo employed immediately, preference to bo given to men who left the job; (3) work on Saturday afternoon to cease, except for overtime payment, and 0i days to bo worked by men instead of four until the job is completed; (4) the ban on strikers to be lifted by the Bureau; (3) single men to be placed on other jobs at once; (6) any dispute regarding what is "relief work" or what is ordinary work to be referred to the Labour Department. Mr. Butler said that these terms were not all that wa sdesired. The claims of tho men were: —(1) Full recognition of the award, and (2) reinstatement of all strikers. He said that in effect the first claim had been granted, but as the work was still "officially" classed as a relief work, the terms of the "No. 5 Scheme" did not permit single men to work ou "fourday" jobs. Thus, whilst the married men were placed on the 54-day basis, the single men were put to' other jobs. It was unfortunate that this stipulation could not be overcome, as the regulations of the No. 5 Scheme made it imperative. The Unemployment Board was subsidising the work for four days, and the trustees of tho Art Gallery were paying the other one day and a half, without subsidy. "There was only one sane thing to be done, and that was to take the job out of the category of relief work entirely, and let if continue as it really is, an ordinary contract job," said Mr. Butler. He claimed that the action of the men was fully justified, and he hoped that tho dispute now settled would act as a deterrent to further attempts by any body or individual to exploit the unemployment position. The effect of the settlement was that the men were now getting £4 4s for a 54-day week instead of £2 16a for a 4-day week.