FREEZING INDUSTRY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 258, 14 October 1932, Page 11

FREEZING INDUSTRY

NEW WORKING CONDITIONS OPERATING FROM OCTOBER 17. Is connection with the Freezing Workers’ Award, meetings have been held in all industrial districts with the object of arriving at a settlement of new terms and conditions for the forthcoming season. These meetings have not produced any agreement and the award will automatically expire in the Wellington industrial district on the Ist October 1932. Employers through the Dominion are at one In regard to tho terms and conditions which should apply as from the beginning of the new season and have now made them public. It may be said that they have slightly - modified their wage proposals since the last meeting with the Unions and have met some of the objections raised by the Unions in regard to proposed conditions. The new terms and conditions will come into operation throughout the North Island on and after October 17, in Canterbury, Otago and Southland on and after November 1 at most works, and in Marlborough about November 10.

It is difficult to state exactly the average percentage reduction in wages proposed, but it is calculated to be somewhere in the vicinity of from 10 per cent to 11 per cent. In the ease of the more highly paid men the percentage reduction is more; in the case of the lower paid worker, less.

For example, it is proposed to pay slaughtermen 30/- per hundred for sheep and 27/- per hundred for lambs; this is a r elm; t ion of from 16} per cent to 20 per cent. In the case of Slaughterhouse Assistants it is proposed to reduce the hourly rate from 1/10} to 1/9}, a reduction of less than 3} per cent; freezers from 2/0} to 1/10}, a reduction of 7} per cent; and general hands from 1/10} to 1/9, a reduction of 6} per cent.

Provision has been made for hourly workers for overtime rates to be paid for all time worked in excess pf eight hours between 7.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on 5 days of the week and 4 hours between 7.30 a.m., and 12 noon on Saturday, on the basis of time and a quarter for the first two hours overtime, and time and a half thereafter.

Under the new conditions it is estimated that when working full time slaughtermen will be able to earn from 27/- to 30/- a day, pullers from 28/- to 35/- a day, slaughterhouse assistants 14/6 a day plus overtime, general hands 14/- a day plus overtime, and freezers rather more. As regards the general conditions, very few important alterations have been made; the conditions, however, have been redrafted and, it is believed, are now in a much more simple form than previously.