FREEZING INDUSTRY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 23 June 1936, Page 6

FREEZING INDUSTRY

COMPLETE AGREEMENT REACHED * PROCEEDINGS BEFORE CONCILIA - ■ TION COMMISSIONER (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, 22nd June. A complete agreement was reached late on Saturday night in the Dominion meat freezing industry dispute heard in Wellington before the newlyappointed Conciliation Climmissioner, Mr M. J. Reardon. The effect will be. that, as from Ist July next the employees in the freezing industry throughout New Zealand will revert to the conditions and wages as in their 1931 awards and agreements. Where clauses were agreed on during the three days’ sitting, these will be embodied in the 1931 conditions, but where no agreement has been reached the 1931 conditions will apply. The Arbitration Court will not be asked to deal in any way with the ratps of pay, hours of labour or working conditions, but will be asked to determine after, hearing argument, whether the payments provided for by the recent legislation should be taken into account in the calculation of the 1931 rates when no holidays were paid for. It is officially explained that the agreement provides for reversion to the wages as in the 1931 awards, and the agreement is subject to adjustments necessitated by the chain system .of slaughtering, which was not followed in 1931. It is hoped that the Court will only have to adjust matters and clauses which may still in dispute. The Court will be asked, and the parties reserve the right' to argue, whether the industry will be worked on a 40-hour or 44hour week, and whether, in arriving at the wages payable, the employers have the right to take into calculation the new legislative provision regarding holidays and so forth. The wages clauses operate from Ist July, but the other conditions from the date when the Court makes the award.