Safeguarding Employed Women

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6834, 15 April 1932, Page 6

Safeguarding Employed Women

DISCUSSION IN PARLIAMENT Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Last Night. The House to-day considered the amendments made' by the Legislative Council in the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill. Hon. A. Hamilton moved that the amendments be disagreed with. Air. J. AlcCombs then moved as an amendment that they be disagreed with wdth the exception of that made in clause 7 giving women workers the right to apply to the Arbitration Court for fixation of minimum rates of wages.

Seconding Air. AlcComb’s amendment the Leader of the Opposition said a new principle was introduced into clause 11 in that a bonus system was involved. The bonus system would make for wholesale sweating throughout the Dominion. The original clause (providing fo r payment on a piecework basis) was bad enough because it gave the employers power to ingore an - industrial organisation of workers and make a bargain with the individual worker, but the bonus system would be even worst*. Mr. Forbes said the clause relating to women, and the Court was intended to carry out the undertaking ho had given in the House during the Committee stago of the Bill, and he would have the matter of women workers reconsidered by the Council. There was some small objection, however, to the form in which the clause had been made. It was largely a matter of legal phraseology. It was a question as to whether the clause expressed accurately the Government’s intention. The amendment moved by Air. AlcCombs was defeated by 42 votes to 29, and Mr. Hamilton’s motion was adopted. Afcssrs. Schramm, Bodkin and Hamilton were appointed managers to confer with representatives of the Legislative Council and to state as the House’s reason for disagreement that the amendments did not clearly define the intention desired.