TRANSPORT DRIVERS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 10

TRANSPORT DRIVERS

DOMINION AWARD FILED

The New Zealand Passenger Transport Drivers' award was filed in the Arbitration Court today. It embodies the recommendations of the Conciliation Council which sat in -Wellington on March 23, and is to operate for one year: from July 3, 1933. In a memorandum to the award his Honour Mr. Justice Frazer states:— "The only matters referred to the Court were the disputes committee clause, and special conditions for the North Shore Transport Company (Limited), which have been inserted in a form acceptable to the parties, and * claim by the union for an additional Id per hour for drivers employed in publicly-owned services. A majority* of the Court: has decided that it is unreasonable to require the payment, of higher wages by these undertakings, which are carried on on exactly Bimilar lines to those of undertakings carried on by private owners in other localities. The principle of awarding ■.* an additional Id per hour above standard rates to workers employed by local bodies in the course of their ordinary activities is not considered to be properly applicablein.the case of publiclyoperated commercial undertakings. The contention that higher rates are paid to omnibus drivers in those towns in which the tramway authorities operate omnibuses does .not affect the issue, for there the omnibuses are ancillary to. the trams, and the drivers are paid rates based on those of tramway employees generally. . WORKERS' REPRESENTATIVE. "Mr. Monteith desires to record a dissent, qn the grounds that the local bodies affected by this, award operate omnibus services similar to those of other municipalities that also operate omnibus services, that the rates agreed upon by .those municipalities are more favourable to, the- employees than! those provided,.by this award, and that there is no eyidencey that the higher rate which was ; formerly agreed to has resulted in any doss." ■■