WATERSIDE WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 8

WATERSIDE WAGES

STATEMENT CONTRADICTED

Watersiders had not received a 38 per cent, wage increase through State subsidies, said the secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union, Mr. T. Hill, today, regarding yesterday's Wellington Chamber of Commerce statement on the subject. Mr. Hill stressed that the only wage increase the watersiders had received since June, 1940, was the cumulative effect of the two cost-of-living bonuses, which had been shared by all other workers in the Dominion.

Mr. Hill was commenting on the statement published in the "Evening Post" yesterday, that Mr. Gordon Stewart, chairman of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce legislative committee claimed watersiders and seamen had gained a 25 per cent, wage increase advantage over the 13 per cent, granted to other industrial workers. Mr. Hill denied ttjat this applied to watersiders, and stated that their only wage increase in the past five years had been the cost-of-living bonuses. "So far as the subsidies that are payable to employers are concerned," he said, "these have been granted to meet wages payable for work under the shift system—night and day—and on Sundays. These hours were not requested by the workers, but were reputed to be required to meet the national emergency and were instituted by order of the Waterfront Control Commission at the employers' request.

"The rates of pay for shift work were fixed by the Waterfront Control Commission following a dispute between the workers and the employers, and the rates paid are lower than the workers requested and only what the employers offered in the first instance. Further, the rates are considerably lower than are paid to waterside workers in Australia, England, America, and other countries.

"The long hours of work have had a telling effect on the health of the workers, and I am in complete agreement that subsidies for shipping should be abolished. My organisation is putting up a lone fight at the moment to have shift work abolished; this is bitterly opposed by the employers, and if the chambers of commerce can induce the employers to agree to the abolition of shift work, then subsidies will automatically be abolished, too, and the chambers will receive the appreciation of my organisation."