COURT'S DECISION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 61, 9 September 1937, Page 10

COURT'S DECISION

EXISTING AWARDS UNAFFECTED

GUIDE TO COUNCILS

The decision of tho Arbitration Court, announced yesterday, fixing the standard wages for skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled workers will not affect existing awards. Considerable misapprehension appears to exist on the point, many workers considering that the Court's decision would result in an immediate increase in wages, but the position is that, the rates fixed are those which the Court would normally fix in any dispute that came before it. In exceptional circumstances, of courso, the Court would have the right to depart from the standard rates but where the circumstances were normal the Court would automatically fix the rate of wages in accordance with its pronouncement— 2s 9d for skilled workers, 2s 5d to 2s 7£d for semi-skilled' workers, and 2s 4d for unskilled workers. It is also the intention of the Court that the rates fixed should act as a guide to conciliation councils. In the past, owing to the variation in the rates in different industries, difficulty has been experienced by" conciliation councils in reaching agreement on the question of wages. This difficulty should now be largely removed.