PLASTERERS' DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 11

PLASTERERS' DISPUTE

PROPOSALS FOR AWARD

DIVERGENCE IN WAGES

A marked difference in wages wa: contained in the citations and cross citations in the dispute between mastei plasterers and the Wellington Plas terers' Industrial Union of Workers which was heard in conciliation council today. Employers also claimed for e 44-hour week, while employees proposed a 40-hour, five-day (no Saturday work) week. The procedure was unusual in thai (here were cross-citations instead of counter-proposals. Tljis position arose because the workers intended to apply for an award, but were forestalled by the employers, who made their application first. The Conciliation Commissioner (Mr. S. Ritchie) presided. The applicants, the master plasterers, had as assessors Messrs. A. Fletcher, R. E. Kent, "W. H. Smith, and G. Masters; and the employees' assessors were Messrs, J. Ryan, E. Newson, N. Hildreth, and J. Hattam. The main points in the proposals put forward by the applicants were:— A 44-hour week; minimum wage of 2s Id an hour for plasterers; on outside work, Is extra a day for the worker responsible for carrying out the work and who gives instructions to the other workers; overtime at time and a quarter for the first foui* hours and time

and a half thereafter; payment of double time for work on Sundays, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Easter Monday, and Labour Day; overtime rates for any time worked in excess of five hours without a meal interval of half an hour; the employment as an improver for not more than twelve months at Is 4id an hour of an apprentice who has completed his apprenticeship, with the power to spread the period of improvership over two years from the date of the start of the apprenticeship;, one hour's notice of termination of employment on either side, or one hour's pay in lieu of notice for the workers; term of award, two years. Machinery clauses for country and suburban work, meals and accommodation, and preference were included, and a proposal that nothing in the award should prevent a worker agreeing with his employer to make up time lost through wet weather. WORKERS' CLAIMS.

Cross-citations by the respondents were:—

A 40-hour five-day week; minimum wage for journeymen plasterers, 3"s 2d an hour or £6 6s 8d a week, and for all journeymen fibrous plaster fixers 3s an hour or £6 a week; on outside work, 2s 6d extra a day for the worker responsible for carrying out the work and who gives instfuctions to the other workers; overtime at time and a half for the first hour and double time

thereafter, not more than four hours' overtime to be worked in any one day; payment of double time for work on New Year's Day, Boxing Day, Easter Monday, and January 2, no time to be worked on Saturdays, Good Friday, Christmas Day, Anzac Day,; Sundays, and Labour Day; no overtime to be worked if union members are put of work and available when required; no piecework or subletting of work.

The employers proposed that the award be operative in the Wellington industrial district, and the employees asked for the inclusion of Taranaki.

The employees also pressed for allowances for meals, country and suburban work, and accommodation in excess of those proposed by. the employers. EXTRA PAY CLAUSE. Sixpence extra a day was asked for men employed in fumigating or work ordered by the health authorities; on swinging' or suspended scaffolds, or on any black, blue, brown, green, or red coloured work; on steeples when working 30ft or more above the eaves of a building; on chimney-stacks or towers standing apart from buildings when working 40ft or more above the ground; in sewers, tunnels, or other wet places. If scaffolding was erected with a reasonable degree of rigidity, and was passed by the inspector, no extra pay was asked. Sixpence extra was also asked for men working where dust was caused by falling walls or plaster, or having to handle charred timber. Mr. J. Hewitt a representative of Wellington tilers and slab-tilers, entered a strong protest against clause 15 of the workers' proposals, which included slab-tiling and wall and floor tiling as plasterers' work. If that were done, he said, the tiling trade would become obsolete. There were enough tilers in Wellington ■ to form their own union. It was decided to keep his protest in view when the clause was discussed. (Proceeding.)