ARBITRATION COURT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 242, 26 September 1922, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT.

WATERSIDE WORKERS’ CASE. V» ellington. September 25. Before the Arbitration Court in the watersiders’ dispute further evidence oi wharf employees was taken. Oscar Mcbrine, president of the Auckland Waterside Workers’ Union, said the present membership of the Auckland union was 1255. ihe number oi members this year was 200 less than last year. He had known regular waterside workers to go for three or four weeks at a time without getting work* atFiiough they were genuinely seeking work. Mr. Roberts, to the witness: What return th" your opinion, would give a fair average of the men’s earnings on the waterfront, the individual and actual return which each man has earned for his work on the waterfront for a year and if he is seeking work ? Witness: 'Hie average slibuld be for 52 weeks whether he worked 52 weeks or not. Mr. W. G. Smith maintained that the system of arriving at the average earnings of the men submitted by the employers was the true average of the men who actually, worked. His Honour remarked that the object was tol get at the average earnings for a year. He did not think that the system of taking the highest men for each month was a sound system. In reply to further questions the witness asserted that considering the hours worked and the dangerous and hard nature oil the work the average amount earned by a waterside worker was not a living wage. Anyone, he thought, would admit that £4 12/2, which was the average for a busy year, was lower than the basic wage of the lowest class of labour in the Dominion; that was, when they remembered the number of hours worked overtime, worked at freezing works, coal, etc. Tlie average amount of pay received by waterside workers was below; the basic wage of a labourer. Witness said he knew/ that it was difficult to get some people to believe that waterside workers were not wealthy, but anyone who knew the hours they worked and the hard and dangerous nature of the work must admit that on the average they were underpaid.