BUTTER WORKERS DISPUTE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6492, 11 April 1908, Page 3

BUTTER WORKERS DISPUTE

CONCILIATION BOARD’S RECOMMENDATIONS.

The Conciliation Board yesterday filed its recommendations in the Wellington Butter, Creamery and Cheese 1 actory Workers' dispute. The minimum weekly wages recommended are as follow': —Buttermakers. £3 10s; cheesemakcrs, £3 10e; engine-drivers, £3 ; first assistants, »T2 15s ; cream receivers, £2 10s; creamery managers, £2 ss; other workers, not including youths, £2 ss; youths from 16 to 17 years, not less than 15s per week, 17 to 18 25s per week; casual workers not less than one-eighth in addition to the foregoing rates. No preference is recommended to unionists. Employers must provide suitable house accommodation, with fuel. All workers to receive not less than two quarts of milk per day, buttermakers not less than 21b of butter per week, and cheesemakers 21b of cheese, or their equivalent in money. Wages for creamery managers not to cover carting of cream, fuel or stores, remuneration for this work to be mutually agreed upon. Wages are to be paid fortnightly, with two weeks' notice on cither side of termination of services- In every creamery where the milk received per day exceeds 20,000 pounds, an assistant must be employed at not less than 25s per week. A week’s work not to exceed 54 hours, hours of work in or in connection with creameries to be subject to mutual agreement. Overtime to be paid at the following rates; —First four hours, time and a quarter; next four hours, time and a half; double thereafter. Overtime not to be reckoned until the aggregate number of hours actually worked shall have exceeded 54 hours. Every employee who has worked not loss than eight ’ months during on© year for the same employer to receive fourteen days' holiday on full pay, a holiday of proportionate duration to be allowed everv worker who shall have worked less than eight months during the same year for the same employer, but not less than sis morfths. Christmas Bay and Good Friday to be observed as holidays, all work done on these days to be paid for at the rate of double time. Every factory to bo provided with a suitable bathroom and dressing-room. No employer must discriminate against members of the union, nor do anything in the conduct of his business directly or indirectly for the purpose of injuring, the union. * The duration of the award is from May 10th, 1903, until Matf 10th. 1910, unless superseded by another award or industrial agreement. In a memorandum the Board points out that whereas the union asked for a 48-hours week, the members, after personal inspection, were of the opinion that bv tho adoption of more systematic methods the hours of labour might be curtailed but they were not prepared to recommend less than 54 hours per week. The clause providing for yearly holidays on full pay embodied existing practice, and was obviously intended to be compensatory for the long hours necessarily worked during the busy season. The employers were desirous of having factories classified according to output,' and to have wages graded accordingly, but after careful consideration of the question of classification the Boards had decided against its adoption, being influenced largely by the fact that though there were a few factories conducted on a scale much larger than the majority, the rates of wages were much the same in large and small factories. The minimum wages recommended represented an in some factories, but were those now being paid in the great majority of factories, while in some instances more being paid. Having regard to all the circumstances of the claim for # preference to unionists, more especially to the fact that the factories are widely scattered and often in remote parts of the industrial district, the Board had bv a majority decided not to recommend preference. "With this exception the recommendations represented the unanimous finding of the Board.