AWARD WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1934, Page 11

AWARD WAGES

GENERAL ORDER SOUGHT

CASE OF APPRENTICES

A plea for legislation giving the industrial unions the right to approach tho Arbitration Court with a request for a general increase in wages was made by Mr. F. Jones (Labour, Dunedin South) in tho House of Representatives last night during the course of his speech in the Budget debate.

Mr. Jones said that as the result of tho Government's legislation providing for compulsory conciliation and voluntary arbitration the worlyjrs had suffered severely, and in 51 industries throughout the Dominion thero wero no awards in operation. In one industry in tho Auckland district married men wero being paid from £2 to £2 10s per week. Many workers had suffered more than a2O per cent. cut. They had boon faced with the position of having no awards at all with any wages and any conditions, or with awards which provided for drastic reductions on previous awards. Surely it was up to the Government to legislate for these people. The workers in industry were entitled to participate in the Christmas box, the election box, or whatever the Budget might be called.

Mr. Jones said that the Government should also give consideration to the apprentices and restore. them to something like their former position. Instead of 105 apprenticeship committees, ther were now 06, because it had been ruled that when an industrial agreement lapsed, the provisions of the Apprentices Act also ceased. The position was grossly unfair to the boys.