Freezing Works Wages

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 288, 5 December 1936, Page 6

Freezing Works Wages

NEW AWARD ANNOUNCED Per Pres 3 Association. WELLINGTON, Last Night. A new award for freezing works employees was announced to-day in the Arbitration Court. It applies to the industrial districts of Northern, Taranaki, Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago and Southland. The award specified that the ordinary hours of work shall be eight daily, including “smokos,” between 7.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on livo days of the week and four hours, including “smokos,” between 7.30 and noon on Saturday, overtime to be at time and a-half for tho first six hours and then double time. Waiting time rates are 2s 6d an hour for pieceworkers and 3s an hour for slaughtermen. The* wages prescribed for chainsystem slaughtering are 3s an hour, and for tho ring system of slaughtering not less than 3s an hour. Ordinary piecework rates are £2 a 100 for sheep, £1 17s 6d for lambs and £2 6s for show sheep and lambs. Mr. A. L. Monteith (employees’ assessor) delivered a dissenting judgment, in which he said: “I am not in agreement with the wage rate awarded to hourly workers. The minimum rate should, in my opinion, be at least 2d higher. Prior to tho 40-hour week, when labourers got Is lOd, these workers were awarded 2s Id. To-day the rate of a general labourer is 2s OJd, and these workers are still on 2s Id. These workers have lost their place in tho wage scale when compared with the others. The work is both seasonal and casual, and the loss on account of these circumstances is a serious matter to the workers.” a