BUILDING TRADE RULES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1354, 10 February 1898, Page 13

BUILDING TRADE RULES.

Before the Arbitration Court, sitting at the Parliamentary Buildings on the 2nd, the hearing of the dispute between the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and the Builders’ and Contractors’ Association of Wellington was continued. W. D. Michie, secretary of the Union, was further crossexamined, and the admission of the testimony given by two non-unionists before the Conciliation Board concluded the evidence for the Union. R. McKenzie, president of the Union, was cross-examined by Mr W. L. Thompson, president of the Association. James Trevor, a contractor, said there was a minority of competent men among the carpenters engaged in the city. The proportion of really competent men in Wellington was possibly one in three or four. By Mr James Russell: .More than half of the men working for him at present were strangers to Wellington. Strangers were more plentiful than fever just now. By Mr Justice Williams: The influx was due, he thought, to a slackening off in the trade elsewhere, and to reports of plentiful work in Wellington. By Mr Russell: The best-paid men were the cheapest in many ways. By Mr McKenzie: He was a bricklayer, plasterer and slater. < He had served his time as a bricklayer. By reason of his being so many years in the building trade, and having had so many men employed under him, he thought he was competent to judge carpentry. The schedule in regard to travelling proposed by the Union would not, he believed, be workable. He did not see why he should he prohibited from having parts of a job done on piece-work. James Hutchins, of Stewart and Co., said his firm belonged to the Association. The alteration of hours suggested by the Union would lead to the shutting up of his mill earlier on Saturdays, as if one class of tradesmen knocked off at a quarter to 12 o’clock on that day, the others would have to cease work at the same time. He employed from 70 to 80 men of all trades. When he found that the* Government was bringing in labour law 3 he ceased to bind apprentices, so leaving himself free to discharge them at any time. The boys kept with him without agreements. If he cared to do so, he could have many more boys than he had. The mills werer really the only places were boys Gould learn the joinery .trade. By Mr Russell: He did not discharge men except on Saturdays. If the proposed rules came., into force prices for sashes, &c., would have to be raised, or something of the sort {done, unless he introduced the system of piecework, which he was not inclined to do. By Mr McKenzie: He employed about twenty joiners. About twelve of them wore journeymen. Most of these received J 53 per week. He did not pay full wages to youths as soon as they had served their time. Men working on piecework did

more work for the money than men paid by the hour. When he ceased to. bind apprentices it was reported that a Bill was to be introduced to fix the wages of apprentices and the terms of their indentures. A boy had every chance to learn the joinery trade in four years. Mr Justice Williams, in reply to a Question, said the Union Steam Ship Company had not been made a party to the dispute. Mr W. L. Thompson, addressing the Court on behalf of the Association, said the builders would accept the hours—44— worked in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin if the standard rate of pay were made the same as in Auckland, namely, £2 15s per week. Mr James Bussell, the other representative of the Association, said the facilities for making demands fen- \ couraged the Union to bring these matters before the Court. It would be more satisfactory if the hours and rate of pay were the same - throughout New Zealand. Mr McKenzie,, replying on behalf of the Union, spoke in support of the suggested idea of working rules. He said it had been asserted that the Union wanted to have non-unionists displaced in favour of unionists. It did not want anything of the sort. It simply wanted to have .prior right of employment for its members, if other things were equal. If members of the Union were competent, they ought to be considered before non-unionists. As unionists had to act as an executive on behalf of all employees, they had a right to be considered first. It has been contended that non-unionists might be married and have other responsibilities. In reply to that he would point out that union men were also married and were not without responsibilities. If the little changes the Society asked for would stop building, well there could not be very much in such speculation. Complaints were not made by individual employees, but by the Society in an official manner. The rules t of the Society provided that when- men were over 50 years of age, and were unable to earn the minimum wage, they were allowed to work for lees remuneration.

Mr Hutchins produced a list of carpenters and joiners employed by Stewart and Co., which showed that one received 72s per week, seven 60s, one 565, two 60s, two 45s and one 40s. He explained that the men who received less than J? 3 per week were not long out of their time. Mr H. Thomson asked whether the meaning of the two hours* notice asked for by the Union was that tools were to be sharpened in the discharging employer’s time. Mr McKenzie replied in the affirmative, and added that at the present time tools were sharpened in the employer’s time during the progress of a job. If a man was discharged without previous notice he had no time to get his tools into something like order for another job. Mr Justice Williams, in reply to a question by Mr Bussell as to Wellington builders doing work at Fetone and vice versa, said the decision of the Court would bind only tho (

persons who were parties to the dispute. A lot of questions arose out of these cases that he shuuld be very sorry to answer offhand. It would require a lawsuit to answer some of them. The parties to a dispute which came before the Court were bound by the Court’s award.