PAINTERS & DECORATORS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11661, 27 October 1923, Page 6

PAINTERS & DECORATORS

NEW AWARD SOUGHT. A now award is asked for by the New Zealand Federated Painters and Decorators’ Union, representing workers in that trade in all parts of New Zealand with the exception of Taranaki, Wiretland, and Marlborough. The union is' asking that ordinary rates of pay should be increased from 2s l}d to 2s 9d per hour and. that the week should be of 40, instead of 44 hours. At present, a “Times” reporter was informed by a union official, some employers pay extra rates for ‘‘dirty work,” such as fire jobs or work done by order of the Health Department, and some do not, and the union was asking that provision should be made in the award for additional pay at the rate of 6d per hour for such work, and also for work done from swing stages. Overtime is now paid for at the rate of time and a half; the demand made is for double time. A suggestion is made that the payment of apprentices should be put on a new basis by fixing the rates for six-monthly periods of service, instead of for yearly periods, commencing at 25s per week for the first half-year and rising by 5s increments up to £3 IQs per week during the last six months of apprenticeship.