RISE DISPUTED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20628, 2 December 1941, Page 4

RISE DISPUTED

WAGES IN ORCHARDS GROWERS’ OBJECTION CUT IN SELLING PRICE (Per Tress Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A deadlock has occurred between the Government and the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation about the terms of purchase of the 1942 apple and pear crop. Explaining the position, Mr. H. R. Sampson, Canterbury director of the federation, who saw the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. J. G. Barclay, in Wellington last Friday, said yesterday that' the negotiations had broken down because of an extraordinary condition inserted by the Government in the purchase terms. This was: “The over-all average price for apples and pears to be 5s 3d, workers under the orchard workers agreement to be granted wages 5 per cent above the rate specified in the present agreement.” The directors, he said, felt it was impossible to carry out negotiations with such a clause in the conditions. An orchard employers’ union had been set up at the request of the Government to deal with all matters affecting orchard wages and conditions of work and while legal machinery existed for the settlement of wages disputes, then it was thought improper to seek to force an increase in wages by this method.

Agreement Already Reached

The employers’ union had already met the workers’ union in Wellington last week and complete agreement on wages and conditions of employment had been reached. This agrebmetn provided for various increases in rates which actually amounted to more than 5 per cent, but the agreement was made subject to the employers receiving substantially the same purchase price as they received last season.

As the terms offered by the Government provided for a reduction on the amount paid last season, he said the wages agreement became inoperative. Last season the growers were to be paid an assessed average of 5s 3d, but by reason of the exceedingly good grading yield experienced in the main growing areas the Government pay-out was actually 5s 4-jd. The Government now proposed that if, at the end of the season, it was found that the assessed average was not 5s 3d, then the price would be adjusted by addition to or deduction from the final pay-out.