THE GRIMSBY FISHERY DISPUTE.

Evening Star, Issue 11676, 7 February 1902, Page 1

THE GRIMSBY FISHERY DISPUTE.

Sra Edward Pry has settled the Grimsby UshiDg industry dispute by the smtpfe process of splittmg the difference —the method adopted by most arbitrators. The two main points of dispute between, the employers and the men were the rate of wages and the method of “ signing on.” The men originally demanded a fixed rate of wages, but agreed provisionally, pending the decision of the arbitrator, to work on the terms of receiving payment partly by fixed wage and partly by results. Sir Edward Pry has adopted the latter system, fixing the rate of wages at the figure offered by the employers, but allowing the men an extra halfpenny poundage on the profits of their labor more than the masters were willing to concede. The masters are to submit their accounts to the Board of Trade officers, in order that there may be no unfair deductions and misleading statements of profits. The masters wanted the men to sign on at the Employers’ Federation Offices. The men objected to this as impairing their freedom of action. The employers, on the other hand, were opposed to the practice of “signing on” at a number of different offices, which, they maintained, led to the same men entering into a number of different contracts, with the result that boats when ready for sea often found themselves without the full crews which they bad on paper. Sir Edward Fry has decided that the “ signing on ” is to he at the Board of Trade Offices, the employer being protected against engaging men under contract elsewhere by a system of discharge certificates. The most unsatisfactory feature erf the dispute is illustrated by the necessity under which the arbitrator has found himself of laying down the moat minute regulations as to the duties of each grade of employe on the fishing vessels, the most elementary duties having to be elaborately specified to prevent, crews from shirking their work, on the pretext that a particular job was one which ought to be done by some other class of men. The full award is well worth perusal in this respect, for it corroborates many of the statements in ‘ The Times ’ articles on the crisis in British industry.