PRIVATE HOTEL WAGES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21358, 6 December 1932, Page 14

PRIVATE HOTEL WAGES

WOMEN WORKERS' RATES NEW ORDER OF COURT DISSENTING VIEW RECORDED "The Court has departed from the rates fixed by the expired award and has endeavoured to arrive at rates that can reasonably he paid by the industry and at the same time afford a reasonable standard of living to the workers," states .Mr. Justice Frazer, president of the -Arbitration Court, in a memorandum attached to an order of the Court fixing the minimum rates of wages of females employed in private hotels. The order is the first of its kind to be issued under the amended Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. and it applies to the whole of Xew Zealand, except Stewart Island. Where five or more cooks are employed, the new order provides for £3 17s 6d for the first cook, £2 17s 6d for the second and £2 for the third, and there are appropriate reductions in the scale for houses where the number of cooks i,j four, three, two or one. The rate is £2 where one cook is employed, if the number of workers in the establishment exceeds three. Kitchen maids are to receive £1 in their first 12 months and £1 10s thereafter, and head waitresses are to receive £1 7s 6d. All the rates specified include board'and lodging, with an allowance of 16s a week where board is not provided and 8s a week where lodging is cot provided.

The principal alteration in the classification of workers, as existing under the expired award, is the separation of cooks from kitchenmaids. The rates of wages for cooks will, in future, depend on the number of cooks employed. In general, the rates of wages are somewhat lower than those prescribed under the expired award. In the case of the kitchen staffs : the reductions hare in some cases been offset to an extent by changes in classification. The Licensed Hotels Employees' Award, which in the past has largely governed the rates for private hotels, has been disregarded, because the circumstances of the - two classes of establishments differ verv considerably. At the same time, it is stated that the rates now fixed compare favourably with these fixed by the current Tearooms and Restaurant Employees' Award. In an opinion dissenting from the majority of the Court, Mr. A. L. Monteith, assessor for the unions, says: "I am not in agreement with the majority, in so far as a new rating has been inserted, which makes the minimum rate 17s 6d, wherea3 in the Licensed Hotel Award, made about two months ago, the workers, for exactly the same work, will receive £1 7s 9d. The new classification alters the whole basis of payment for. the kitchen staff, and as a result cooks will be reduced to lower grades and in addition will, in many cases, receive a reduction of 20 per cent in the wages payable to such lower grade. The work of waitresses, which is exactly the same as performed in the licensed hotels, will be paid 20 per cent less."