FRUIT PURCHASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24137, 2 December 1941, Page 8

FRUIT PURCHASE

DEADLOCK REACHED GOVERNMENT AND GROWERS PRICE AND WAGES FACTORS |"BT TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] CHRISTCHURCH, Monday A deadlock has occurred between the Government and the New Zealand Fruitgrowers' Federation about the terras of purchase of the 1942 apple and pear crop. Explaining the position Mr. H. R. Sampson, Canterbury director of the federation, who saw the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. J. G. Barclay, in Wellington on Friday, said that the negotiations had broken down because of an extraordinary condition inserted by the Government in purchase terms —"the over-all average purchase for apples and pears to be 5s 3d; workers under the orchard workers' agreement to be granted wages 5 per cent above the rate specified in the present agreement." The directors, he said, felt it was impossible to carry out negotiations with such a clause in the conditions. An orchard employers' union has been set up at the request of the Government to deal with all matters affecting orchard wages and conditions of work, and while legal machinery existed for the settlement of wages disputes then it was thought improper to seek to force an increase in wages by this method. The employers' union had already met the workers' union in Wellington last week and a complete agreement on wages and conditions of employment had been reached. This agreement provided for various increases in rates, which actually amounted to more than 5 per cent, but the agreement was_ made subject to the employers receiving substantially the same 'purchase price as they received last season. As the terms offered by the Government provided for a reduction on the amount paid last season, Mr. Sampson said, the wages agreement became inoperative. Last season growers were to be paid an assessed average of 6s 3d, but by reason of the exceedingly good grading yield experienced in the main growing areas the Government pay-out was actually 5s 4sd. The Government now proposed that if, at the end of the season, it was found that the assessed average was not 5s 3d, then the price would be adjusted by addition to or deduction from the final pay-out.