HOTEL EMPLOYEES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15552, 9 March 1914, Page 8

HOTEL EMPLOYEES.

AGREEMENT AGAIN SIGNED.

PROTEST FROM SOME MEMBERS.

The affairs of the new Hotel Employee's' Union are not yet working smoothly. On Thursday evening last an Informal meeting ■of some 17 members of the union passed a motion of no confidence in the executive on account of a meeting having been postponed without their knowledge. Yesterday afternoon a meeting of the union was held in Gleeson's Buildings. A number of men who possessed onion books were refused admittance. Emphasis was added to the refusal of admittance by the presence of a constable. It was explained by an official of the union that though these men had been granted membership, it had been done in error by an official who had been instructed to ascertain if other unions throughout New Zealand would accept •clearances" from the union before accepting clearances" from them. This he had failed to do. The official added that a number of the "clearances presented came from the General Labourers' Union and he was assured that some of the men holding them had never been bona-fide members of It.

, The agreement signed by the new union in December last provided that it should become void in the event of legislation corning into force altering the working conditions of hotel employees. Such an alteration was made by the passing of the amendment to the Shops and Offices Act which came into force on December 15. Un Saturday morning the agreement, practically in its original form, was again signed by the union and the employers before Mr. T. Harle Giles, conciliation commissioner. It is to take effect from December 20 last. The section of the union which is opposed to the executive made representations of protest to Mr. Giles on the ground that the agreement should not have been signed without submission to the union as a whole.