ARBITRATION COURT

Northern Advocate, 20 March 1931, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT

iCOOHS AND STEWARDS, OPPOSING- DEMANDS. (Per Press Association. —Copyright.) WELLINGTON, This Day. 'The Arbitration Court is hearing a dispute affecting cooks and, stewards in the employ of coastal shipping companies. The union asks for an increase in pay of about 15 per cent., and the companies ask for a reduction of about the same amount. Mr Bishop, representing the employers, said wages since 1014 had been increased by about 60 per cent., but the j actual earnings were nearly 150 per cent, more, because of alterations in the conditions of work. “'We find assistant stewards drawing from £204 to —in one extreme case—£4oo a year, plus their keep,” said Mr Bishop, ‘' Stewards and cooks draw from £2-75 to £334, £375, £368, £415, and £53.1 per annum plus keep. Is it any wonder, in face of these figures, that there is an outcry agaiust the cost of transport in this and any sheltered industries in New Zealand?” Where, asked Mr Bishop, was their sense of proportion ? It was time they faced the facts fairly and honestly. The disparity between the earnings oT those workers who were producing for export and those in the slieltorcdlnflustries must be removed. Here was, per-| haps, the most glaring example of that j disparity to be found in the whole Dominion. He confidently asked the j court to correct it.