CONFECTIONERY TRADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 227, 24 August 1938, Page 6

CONFECTIONERY TRADE.

NEW AWARD SOUGHT. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Aug. 23. The conditions of the biscuit and confecionery and related trades throughout the Dominion were brought before the Arbitration Court when a new award was sought by the union. It was submitted that the dispute had some unique features and called for special consideration. Ninety per cent, of the labour employed could bo termed boy andg irl labour. It would _be a liberal estimate to say that the adult male labour consisted of about 10 per cent, of the total number in the industry.

The union was unalterably and violently opposed to night-shift work and also to overtime which, wherever possible, should be Abolished and the work thus spread over a greater number of workers. It would be shown that these workers had had very little increase since 1929. The union was asking for a 40-hour week from Monday to Friday, inclusive, the hours to be worked between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. 11l the case of conche room operatives, it was suggested as a compromise that they should be guaranteed 40 hours in five days and that, if called back on Saturday, they should be paid ordinary rates for the hours worked. The union was opposing the provision that preparatory work might be done at ordinary rates of pay. It asked that any work done on Saturday morning should be paid for at double-time rates. In the wages clause a different classification of workers was asked for, and a wage of £7 was claimed for workers in charge of departments, £6 15s for first assistants or leading hands, £6 for workers manufacturing from sugar or glucose, and £5 for general hands now receiving £4 3s. The union sought increases of 4s for youths and 3s for female workers under 21, and asked for 14 days’ annual holiday on full pay apart from any statutory holiday, for a 10 minutes’ spell for morning tea, and for hot and cold showers.

“Liquorice' was invented to utilise scraps from the various departments,” stated the liquorice boiler, who explained that he did not mean by “scraps” anything that was unfit for consumption. , After the union’s evidence had been completed, the case was adjourned until to-morrow for the hearing of the employers’ case.