AWARD SOUGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22465, 8 July 1936, Page 15

AWARD SOUGHT

TAILOBESSES' DISPUTE PARTIAL SETTLEMENT CLAIMS REFERRED TO COURT Only a partial settlement was reached in Conciliation Council yesterday, when the dispute in which the Auckland Tailoresses and other Female Clothing Trade Employees' Industrial Union of Workers cited the Auckland Master Tailors for higher wages and a 40-hour week was continued before the commissioner, Mr. M. J. Reardon. Though a 40-hour week and some of the wages clauses for apprentices, coatmakers and women employed on weekly wages were agreed to, no agreement could be reached on the proposal bv the union of Is 2d an hour for pieceworkers. The union's demands that coatmakers should be paid £2 17s (3d a week and that the minimum wage for other women employed on weekly wages, including machinists, should bo £2 12s Gd a Aveek, were agreed to, but no agreement could be reached on the proposal that after three years an apprentice should be paid journeywomen's rates, nor on that providing for a wage of £2 12s 6d for a girl j in her fourth year of apprenticeship j to coatmaking and thereafter journey- j women's rates. Assessors for the union were Miss A. | E. Cossey (agent), Mrs. S. Reason. M isses H. A. Gibbs and M. E. Charles. Those for the employers were Messrs. H. Preston (agent), F. 0. Gorman. ! M. H. Kushner and P. Groos. Employers' Position When the commissioner asked the employers' assessors if it were not possible for an agreement to be reached on the wages clauses, Mr. Preston said tho employers could not afford to pay Is 2d as an hourly basis for pieceworkers. Mr. Gorman: To be quite candid, if 1 thought I was to be forced to pay Is 2d, I would not hare agreed to pay Is Id. When the employees' claims for holidays were considered the commissioner asked why Auckland's Anniversary Day had not been included in the list of holidays, which included Show Day and the day of the annual picnic. Mr. Gorman: It's not a payable holiday. The Commissioner: All holidays are payable now. A proposal that no deduction from the wages of pieceworkers or weekly hands should be made for these holi'days raised the question from Mr. Preston as to how an employer was to gauge what a pieceworker might earn on the holiday. The Commissioner: He will have to be paid the minimum rate provided for in the award. No Agreement on Holidays " If you would only patronise a very excellent Labour paper," he continued, " you would get the whole of the new legislation on one page. I'm quite sure that much of this is news to you. As a matter of fact, I offered to the Minister of Labour that I should put over the air a statement of this newlegislation. 1 should charge you a fee for my advice." No agreement was reached on the main clauses relating to holidays and wnges for them. The 'preference claiiee was agreed to, the commissioner slating that the Court's clause was exactly what the employers had been doing for years past. What had been the common practice of employers throughout New Zealand for 20 years past was now embodied in the law. Miss Cossey: Not the common practice. I got 1320 new members in the month of June. The claims were finally referred to the Arbitration Court for the making of an award.

HAWKE'S BAY DEMANDS BUILDERS AND CONTRACTORS [by TELEGRAPH —rBESS association] HASTINGS, Tuesday Demands for a new award, made by the Hawke's Bay Builders, Contractors and General Labourers' Union, include a 40-hour week, to be worked on five days. The pay sought is £6 a week for all classes except ordinary labourers (pick and shovel men), for whom £5 10s is sought.