FOOTWEAR EMPLOYEES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 July 1945, Page 6

FOOTWEAR EMPLOYEES

DIRECT ACTION OPPOSED. WELLINGTON, July 23. Employees at two of the lai'gest footwear factories in the Wellington area decided, unanimously, at meetings to-day against action, or a suggested 50 per cent, go-slow policy, in regard to production, as the result of wage anomalies which, it is claimed, exist in the trade in some centres following the recent general order of the .Arbitration Court. Meetings of footwear factory employees have been held to-day in all of the centres, including a large stop-work meeting in the .-'uckland Town Hall. ft is stated by the secretary of the Wellington Union, Mr. G. Marston, that any direct action on the part of Wellington employees can only come if llic majority of the members of the New Zealand Federated Footwear Association of workers decides on this course. There are approximately 1300 adult employees in Auckland. There are 600 in Wellington, 800 in Christchurch, and 285 in Dunedin. In Auckland the position differed from the position in Wellington, he said, in the respect that, prior to the Court’s general order of threepence halfpenny of increase in the hourly wage, the Auckland workers were being paid above the award rates. When the general order came into force the Aucklanders were paid the new minimum wage, bringing them into line with the Wellington workers at the factories of R. Hannah and Company, Limited, Wellington, and the New Zealand Slippers Coy., in Dower Hutt, the two largest factories in the Wellington area. Mr. Marston gave a 15 minute talk to the employees to-day and no stopwork meeting was called here. At the conclusion of each meeting, the employees voted to take no action until the expiry of their present award, in April next year, when they will meet the employers in Conciliation Council.

DUNEDIN, July 23. All footwear workers resumed their jobs this morning and it is understood that no go slow policy, as feared by the employers, eventuated.