WATERFRONT WAGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18950, 23 February 1925, Page 11

WATERFRONT WAGES.

CASE FOR MEN STATED. REDUCTIONS IN SOME RATES. QUESTION OF WEEKLY EARNINGS A .statement from the viewpoint of the waterfront employees regarding recent manifestations of unrest was furnished yesterday by Mr. Oscar Mcßrine, president of the Auckland Waterside Workers' Union. Mr. Mcßrine, writes:— " The Herald's article on Thursday is reasonable so far as the published facts go, but as there are facts of which it takes rio cognisance, it may prove misleading. It is based upon the assumption that the waterside workers in Wellington and other places have taken no other steps to remedy the grievance which they unquestionably feel they have. The facts are that practically every union of waterside workers in the Dominion has expressed its dissatisfaction at the wages awarded by the Court, The federation, on behalf of the unions, approached the employers' central body and asked that a conference should be held to discuss the wages question.. The employers declined to meet the workers' representatives on the matter. Evidence and Argument. "No one can fail to recognise the seriousness of any stoppage of work at the ports, whether partial or general. The question is whether men, after exhausting all other means of obtaining redress, are justified in declining to accept work at wages which they believe to be inadequate, and whether the wages rates are adequate to permit of our members earning sufficient to maintain a decent standard of living is a matter for evidence and argument. " Mr. W. H. G. Bennett, secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Employers' Association, has stated that the rate of pay prescribed by the award was actually fixed by agreement between the waterside workers and the employers and that the Court has only made adjustments in respect of changes in the cost of living; beyond that the Court has given liberal concessions to the men in respect of overtime rates. This is not true, as the Court in making the first award in 1922, made heavy reductions in some of the rates of pay, apart altogether from the adjustments deemed necessary to meet alterations in the cost of living. A few examples may be quoted. In Auckland, under the 1920 agreement, the rates of pay for freezer wages were 2s lid an hour ordinary time and 4s 3d an hour overtime. The Court reduced these to 2s 6d and 3s 7d , a drop of 5d and 8d respectively. It also cut out the previous ' jersey money' for this work, which was 6d a day. The reduction on a 12-hour day was thus 6s 6d. For bunker work the wages were reduced 7s a day at that time. Several other classes of work had the rates of pay reduced in a i less degree, irrespective of the cost of I living reductions. Relation of Work and Wages. "It is true that the general cargo rate was only altered in accordance with the general wages reduction at the time, but that does not mean that that rate would have been agreed to by our members in 1922. ."The necessary link between a given hourly wage and a living wage is the opportunity to work sufficient hours on an average each week throughout the year. The waterside workers are suffering today owing to the fact that during the war period they did not press their wages claims sufficiently, as during that period there was a comparative scarcity of labour and the men who were on the waterfront were thus enabled to work more regularly than during a normal period; hence a comparatively low hourly rate, coupled with the number of- hours worked on the average. sufficed to provide a living wage. With a return to more normal conditions the opportunity to obtain work became less, and as the hours worked in each week fell, the average weekly wage dropped below what was necessary. " Mr. Bennett's statement that ' no evidence on the question of average hours worked by members of the Watersiders' Federation was submitted by the federation advocate,' is not according to fact. I was present in the Court at Dunedin when five union officers from different parts gave evidence in support of the figures handed to the Court by Mr. Roberts on behalf of the federation. On the employers' side only one witness, the secretary of the Dunedin and Port Chalmers Waterside Employers' Association. was put in the box to give evidence on this, point. The figures supplied to the Court by the employers, which the employers' representative and the Judge accepted, only covered (as Mr. Bennett himself admits! 65.8 per cent, of the members of the unions concerned, and only the more regularly employed men. The other 34.2 per cent.. although thev were necessary lo the industry, and whose wages returns would have reduced the average of the - whole to a true statement of the j position, were left out of account.