PRINTING INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 55, 2 September 1937, Page 11

PRINTING INDUSTRY

DOMINION DISPUTE

MAIN ISSUES IN ABEYANCE

The conciliation council dealing with the New Zealand printing trades dispute decided yesterday afternoon, after the Conciliation Commissioner (Mr. M. J. Reardon) had read a telegram, from the Arbitration Court advising ■ that there was no certainty at present as to when its pronouncement on standard wages would be available, to endeavour to agree on machinery clauses only and then to adjourn to a date to be arranged.

The sitting was. continued today, the discussion being on the lines agreed to yesterday afternoon. .

In the related trades section of the dispute the workers claimed a weekly minimum wage of £5 12s 9d for the highest-paid employees, with the exception of electrotypers, for whom a minimum of £6 was sought. The employers proposed a classification under which towns with a resident population of 6000 and under would come under class 2, and other towns and cities under class 1. The highest wage offered was £5 2s 6d. It was agreed that the wages of heads of departments should be fixed by arrangement. The rates claimed for cutters ranged from £3 6s in the first year to £4 19s in the fourth year, thereafter £5 12s 9d. The counter-proposals were for workers in class 1 to rise from £2 in the first year to £4 in the fourth year, thereafter £.5 2s 6d, and for workers in class 2 to rise from £2 in the first year to '£4< in the fourth year, thereafter £4 15s. ■ „„ , Claims were made for a 40-hour week for day workers and a 38-hour week for night workers, a six-day week to be worked in newspaper-printing offices and a five-day week, from Monday to Friday, in other offices. The counter-proposals were for a 44-hour week for day workers and a 42-hour week for night workers, a six-day week to be worked in newspaper-printing offices and in trade-stereotyping houses servicing newspapers, and a five-day week in other offices. Overtime was claimed at the rate of time-and a half for the first three hours and thereafter double time. The employers' offer was for time and a half for all overtime. A claim was made for two weeks annual holiday on full pay, as against one week in the counter-proposal; For females engaged in any branch of- the industry the wages claimed ranged from £1 4s for the first six, months to £2 16s for the fifth year, thereafter £3 ss. The counter-proposals were for rates from 18s for the first six months to £2 10s for the fifth year, thereafter £2 16s. For full-time adult male workers employed in the publishing of newspapers and periodicals the claim was for £4 15s and the counter-proposal for the basic wage prescribed by the Arbitration Court or £4 a week, whichever was the greater.