THE TALLY-CLERKS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8655, 13 February 1914, Page 2

THE TALLY-CLERKS

OBJECTORS TO THE UNION.

Some of the objectors to the TallyClerks’ Union yesterday gave a “Times” reporter their main reasons for being against the conditions asked for by the union. They stats that the senior men who are now employed regularly by the various shipping companies are afraid that they will lose more than half their living it tile clauses reiat.ng to the employment o£ clerks are put into effect. They say that even they are not permanent clerks; that they are as Inueh dependent on the, condition of the wharves as the ordinary waterside worker. They ate unable to Understand, therefore, why Mr Simpson, secretary of the union, should have objected to them being present at the Conciliation Court proceedings on the ground that they wore “permanent clerks.” “We don’t object to the union itsaid one of the Shaw, SaviJl and Albion Company’s senior clerks. “But to lay it down that when we have finished on one of our company’s boats we shall hot go to another the same day If other men are waiting for work Is, We consider, unfair to us. We are men who have worked up to our senior positions. Is it fair that we should not have some consideration? The' whole trouble lies in the fact that there ere toe many tallymlerks offering, and Work cannot be found for all, Some of those men whom we know to hare joined the union appear on the wharf perhaps csly one or two days a week. They cannot be expected to bo treated the same as a man Who a company knows will always be at its ship’s side when he is required.

The objectors state that they will bring evidence in the Arbitration Court in rebuttal of the Union’s claims. •