LABOR MATTERS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 19 January 1912, Page 4

LABOR MATTERS.

WATERSIDE WORKERS.

AGREEMENT SIGNED,

The agreement between the waterside workers and the shipping companies lias been formally signed (says the Wellington correspondent of the Taranaki Herald). The increase in pay will, it is said, amount to between £80,000 and £100,000 per annum. Tjie general impression is that the companies affected will pass it on to the public with perhaps a little bit added.

The general manager of the Union Company, Mr Eou3dsworth, has not yet gone into figures, but he thinks the Union Company's share of the increased payments will be about half the total. The Home companies cannot, of course, increase their freights on dairy produce or frozen meat at once, because they ar<> working under contracts that have still some time to run.

Mr Semple says that the unions- will honorably abide by the agreement. The delegates got what they could not get from the Arbitration Court, and arc highly satisfied. _ The success of the delegates in this case will no doubt mean a considerable accession to the ranks of the federation, and a corresponding blow to the Arbitration Court. One employer, seen^ on the subject this afternoon, was inclined to take rather a gloomy view of the situation. "It is all very v/ell," he said, "to go on giving increases and to keep passing them on the but where is it all going to end? There must come a point at which the'public "cannot afford to i»-:> on paying, and when, the demands of th<> unions must be refused. This continual giving way is only putting off the evil day of a general strike which must como sooner or later."