TRAVELLING TIME

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 144, 15 December 1933, Page 11

TRAVELLING TIME

TOURING STAGE HANDS

CONCILIATION FAILS

The Conciliation. Cpuncil proceedings: between the New' Zealand Theatrical Proprietors . and Managers' Industrial Association of Employers and the New Zealand Federated Theatrical and Places of Amusement Employees' Industrial Association of Workers, in which the employers were asking for a new Dominion award, broke down yesterday afternoon on the question of payment for time occupied by touring workers in travelling. The present award will expire' thirty days after the Clerk of Awards has been notified ■of the failure to agree. When the meeting was resumed after the luncheon adjournment, Mr. A. W. Croskery, advocate for the workers, said that they appreciated very'highly the facft that the employers' assessors had offered the current ruling wages for all workers except touring workers. It was felt, however, by the employees' assessors that ' they could not sacrifice the touring workers, and that the only settlement they1 could contemplate would be one that would bo in the interests of all branches of the industry. When travelling was necessary the touring workers still had tho same long hours and the same work to do as in the past. The employers' assessors then retired, and on their return Mr. W. J. Mountjoy, agent for the employers, said they were prepared to offer the workers the present rates of pay (award rates less 10 per cent, statutory reduction), and to include the existing rates for touring workers, provided that the workers' assessors would agree to overtime at tho rate of time and a quarter. The employers could not agree to payment for travelling in addition to the ordinary rates. Mr. Croskery said that that was the position that'applied before the workers obtained recognition of the principle of payment for time occupied in travelling. After a brief retirement of the employees' assessors, Mr. Croskery intimated that the-offer was refused. A suggestion by the Conciliation Commissioner (Mr. P. Hally) that the matter was one ' which both parties might consider sending- to the Arbitration Court was not supported by the assessors, and Mr. Hally said he would notify the Clerk of Awards of the failure to agree, after which the award would lapse.