METAL WORKERS

Evening Post, Issue 20, 23 July 1935, Page 3

METAL WORKERS

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE

FIVE-DAY WEEK SOUGHT

A minimum wage r?te of 2s 2d an hour and a fivi-day 40-iiour weeii were the main claims made in a meeting between metal workers' assistants and employers in Conciliation Council today, presided over by the Commissioner, Mr. P. Hally. The proceedings were not open to the Press. The applicants for the dispute were the Wellington Metal Workers' Assistants' Industrial Union of Workers. Assessors for the employees - were Messrs. J. Regan, J. H. Collins, S. Ferrell, and A. Murray, and for the employers. Messrs. W. J. Mountjoy (advocate), R. Cable, E. W. Maclean, S. Luke, and D. Jamieson. The applicants asked for a 40-hour week, to be worked on five days, and the respondents offered a 44-hour week, of which eight hours should be worked on five days and four hours on Saturday. The other main differences between the parties were as follows, the counter-proposals of the employers being given in parentheses:—Overtime, time and a half for first four hours and thereafter double time (time and • a half); double time for work on New Year's Day, January 2, Anniversary Day, Anzac Day, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter-Monday, King's Birthday, Labour Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day (double rates for Sundays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday, or Labour Day, time and a half for January 2, Anniversary Day, Easter Saturday, Easter Monday, King's Birthday, Boxing Day); wages, 2s 2d per hour (Is 9d); wages of boys and youths, from 16 to 17 years of age, £2 10s per week (12s 6d); from 17 to'lß, £2 15s (£1); from 18 to 19, £3 (£1 7s 6d); from 19 to 2u, £3 5s (£1 15s);. from 20 to 21, £4■-(£2 2s 6d); thereafter minimum rates (agreed); meal money, Is 6d (Is 3d); dirt money, Is 6d per day extra (Is 3d); workers employed at manure work or casing factories, 3s per day extra (workers not regularly employed at manure works, Is 9d); no exemptions to be granted; nothing in the award to apply to workers employed in measuring, cutting, bending, bracing, and shaping of steel for. reinforced concrete; the. Wellington Harbour Board to be bound by such only of the provisions of the award as relate to the payment of minimum rates of wages and overtime, and the observance of Sundays and holidays; the Harbour Board may substitue the holidays observed in their own regulations in lieu of those provided for in this award; term of award, twelve month! (two years).