DREDGE WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 63, 12 September 1938, Page 11

DREDGE WORKERS

AWARD INTERPRETED

A clause in the Westland gold dredges and alluvial gold mines employees' award has been interpreted by the Court of Arbitration. The point on which an interpretation was sought was whether a man employed as an oiler on an electric and required to operate switches on motors; cannot be classed as a m'otorman in the terms of the award. The case arose as a result of the action by the inspector of awards, Greymouth, for the recovery of a penalty for an alleged breach of the award. Under the award,* wages for. motormen are set down at 2s 3d an hour, and for stackermen and greasers 2s lid, but, unfortunately, states the judgment, the award contains no definitions of the terms used to describe the classes of workers covered. The Court, therefore, was obliged to look for an answer in the custonj prevailing in the district wtih regard to the.employment of workers in the industry. "The worker concerned," states the judgment, "was employed by the defendant company and accepted employment as an 'oiler,' and we gather from the case stated that on dredges on which electricity is not -the motive power, men in charge of the lubricating work and of the stacker.'and screens are customarily termed greasers or stackermen,' whereas men \ employed on similar work on electric j dredges .are customarily termed I 'oilers.'"The award contains no reference to 'oilers,' but it is admitted that the term 'greaser' is synonymous with the term 'oiler,' and that the respective duties of these workers are similar in nature, the main difference being that, in the case of oilers, the machinery is started and stopped by means of switches in lieu of the levers used by j greasers on Diesel or steam-driveu dredges." •