WATERSIDE AWARD

Evening Star, Issue 18807, 4 December 1924, Page 5

WATERSIDE AWARD

EFFORT TO DECASUALISE THE CALLING. MEMBERSHIP LIMITED TO PORT'S NEEDS. [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, December 4. The Arbitration Court has increased the basic wage of the dominion waterside workers from 2s 2d to 2s per hour. Air Hiram Hunter dissented on the ground (hat regular workers only averaged thirtytwo hours weekly, and the basic rate should be 2s 5-[d an hour. The usual preference. danse is inserted, with the addition that provision be made by agreement between the Waterside Workers’ Federation and (ho Employers’ Federation in limit membership at any particular port where the number is deemed to bo excessive for the carrying out of the work. With regard to the alteration in the preference, clause, the Arbitration Court, says: The most important change wo have made in the award is in the preference clause. The court has always maintained the policy of an open union, but it recognises that the waterfront is a place to which the unemployed of all trades gravitate. Waterside workers’ unions accord ingly have to carry more than their fair shave of unemployed, and the. consequent increase in their membership reduces the earning capacity of the. greater number of their members. We have endeavored to decasualise waterside, work as far as possible by providing for a system of limitation of'membership of the unions based on the, labor requirements at the difterent ports. This will not prevent the employment of non-union labor in rush times, but it is Imped that it will diminish the number of so-called “ fringe men who frequent the wharves on the chance of picking up occasional jobs.