WOOLLEN MILL EMPLOYEES

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1940, Page 9

WOOLLEN MILL EMPLOYEES

NEW AWARD SOUGHT. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, November 27. ,An application for a new Dominion award was made to the Court of Arbitration to-day by the New Zealand Federated Woollen Mills and Hosiery Factories’ Employees’ Industrial Association of Workers. The Court comprised Mr. Justice Tyndall and Messrs. W. Cecil Prime (employers’ representative) and A. L. Monteith (workers’ representative). The eihployees asked in all cases of adult males in woollen mills, hosiery factories, and carpet factories for an increase of 20 per cent, on the present rates of pay. The claims sought the abolition of all hourly rates, and the substitution of a weekly rate for all workers other than pieceworkers. The employers’ counter-proposals included: (a) Ordinary hours weekly from Monday to Friday, inclusive, to be 44; (b) ordinary hours of work daily to be between 7.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. each day; (c) between noon and 2 p.m. workers to be allowed an interval of 45 minutes for a meal; (d) the employer to have the right to extract 9 { ordinary hours of work daily till the 44 hours are exhausted; (e) workers to work four and a-half continuous hours before an interval for a meal; (f) no overtime to be paid .to any worker, till he or she shall have completed 44 ordinary hours in any week in which any work is done outside ordinary hours. The hearing will be continued tomorrow.