"GO SLOW" CONTINUES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 63, 15 March 1945, Page 9

"GO SLOW" CONTINUES

CANTERBURY FREEZING WORKERS P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, March 14. I Canterbury freezing workers continued to go slow today, and there was even a suggestion in some of the works that the rate of production might be further lessened tomorrow. A section of the workers took the view that they were not going slow enough, and that results could be achieved more quickly by increasing the effect of their tactics, which have already reduced killings by one-third.

From comments made by freezing wox-kers it appears that the men want to get an increase in the weekly minimum wage equivalent to the increase in the award rates which has been agreed to and to receive it retrospectively to January 1, the date of the agreement.

The secretary of the South Island Freezing Companies' Association, Mr. C. G, Wilkin, when asked to comment on the statement by the secretary of the union, Mr. G. Kilpatrick, on Tuesday, said the amount of the guaranteed minimum wage had never been in dis* pute between the employers and the workers. The guarantee of £5 10s a week applied to adult male workers in all essential industries and not in the freezing works alone.

Mr. Kilpatrick's reference to earnings of £4 10s a week being made up by the employer to £5 10s a week would convey the impression that this has been a common feature this season in the weekly wages of the Canterbury freezing workers," said Mr. Wilkin. "Admittedly killings have been exceptinally low through bad climatic conditions and floods, and the freezing companies have had to meet heavy aggregate payments in making up wage deficiencies, but no adult male worker has received less than £5 10s a week, and in most cases the average weekly wage has been over £5. Only a relatively small percentage of workers had earned as low as £4 10s a week in ordinary time, and this, of course, is made up to £5 10s, plus any overtime or other special payments. In many cases average wages of from £7 to £9 a week have included payments under the minimum weekly wage order averaging from 13s to 215."