LAST-MINUTE CLAIMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 7, 10 January 1938, Page 10

LAST-MINUTE CLAIMS

WORKERS OBJECT

BREEZE IN CONCILIATION COUNCIL

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day,

Allegations by a union representative of "double-crossing" on the part of the employers and a further allegation that one of the employers had

"twisted" made the opening minutes of the plasterers' dispute in Conciliation Council this morning tense.

After a private conference with the Conciliation : Commissioner (Mr. Ritchie), Mr.. D. I. Macdonald, representing firms employing fibrous plasterers, withdrew.

Application was made by the Christchurch Plasterers' Union for an award. Emphatic objection to the last-minute counter-proposals . lodged by Mr. Macdonald was made by the union representatives, who refused to recognise Mr. Macdonald's claims in the dispute. • ■. .

When the meeting opened, Mr. Macdonald announced that he proposed to submit counter-proposals on behalf of three employers.

"There seems to hava been some double-crossing somewhere," commented a workers' assessor, Mr. H. Harries. "We are certainly not going to accept them."

Mr. Macdonald: If the counterproposals are not accepted, the whole of the proceedings will be objected to. Mr. Harries: By whom? Mr. Macdonald: By the people I am representing. Mr. W. C. Pollard, an employers' representative, explained that a. meeting of employers had been called and everyone notified of it. Certain proposals had been agreed to and he thought it only a matter of coming along today to reach a settlement. Now Mr. Macdonald had come along with other proposals, but. he was^three weeks late. Mr. Harries pointed'out that there Were 130 plasterers in the union and that only seven were employed: by the minority, as represented by Mr. Macdonald. They should go to. the Court for exemption. After a private discussion between the union representatives and the Conciliation Commissioner, which lasted for more than an hour, Mr. Ritchie formally appointed the assessors, with the exception of Mr. Macdonald.