TAILORING TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1935, Page 4

TAILORING TRADE

AWARD SOUGHT

HOURS AND WAGES

! An application for an award to I govern conditions in the bespoke tailI oring trade in the Wellington Industrial district having .been made by the ( employers in the trade, assessors I appointed by the employers and employees met in Conciliation Council with Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner, ..today. The employees presented counter-proposals asking for better wages than those offered, higher overtime payments, higher rates for apprentices with a smaller proportion, and higher rates for piecework. The applicants' assessors were Messrs. G. Krebs, H. Gotlieb, J. Bell, and W. J. Mountjoy, and the respondents were represented by Messrs. C. Redmond, E. B. Newton, Mrs. E. Vaughan, and Miss R. Wilson. A forty-hour week was claimed by the employees, the employers asking for forty-four hours. The employers, offered the following minimum wages, the employees' counter-proposals being given in parentheses:— . Tailors, ,£4 Is computed by .the hour (£5 5s a weekj; tailor's pressers, £3 18s 9d (£5); journeywomen coatmakers, £2,6s 6d (£2 15s); other journeywomen and machinists,1 £2 3s 6d (£2 10s). Apprentices:—First six months, 10s a week (15s); second six months, 15s (17s 6d); second year, £1 (third half-year £1. second half-year £1 ss); third year, £1 10s (£1 10s and £1 15s). . ....-" The applicants- asked for the right to employ one apprentice to every two journeywomen or fraction of the first two, and the respondents asked' for a proportion of one to three, or fraction of three! The employers offered time and a quarter for overtime between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., and.time and a half between 10 p.m. and 8 ,a,m. or after 1 p.m. on the weekly half-holiday; pieceworkers to receive -6d ah hour in addition to piecework rates. The employees , asked for time and a half after eight hours' work or after four'1 hours on . the half-holidays; pieceworkers to receive Is an hour in addition to piecework rates. ■ The employers asked for the right to employ female learners, commencing at 12s 6d a week and rising to £1 12s Od in the third year. Rates for piecework were set out in detail in both the employers'' proposals and the employees' counter-prbposals,-the employers' offer in most -cases being about 75 per cent, of the rates claimed by the employees. The employers offered female workers Is an hour for alterations and extras arid the employees asked for Is 4d an hour. Male workers were offered Is IOJd an hour and asked for 2s 6d.

The proposals and counter-proposals are being discussed in committee.