HANDLING OF WOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26413, 18 March 1947, Page 4

HANDLING OF WOOL

QUESTION OF PAYMENT DIFFERENTIATION ALLEGED The Port Chalmers Waterside Workers’ Union, which supplies the majority of the labour for the wool stores operated by the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company at Port Chalmers, decided yesterday that unless non-union labour at the wool stores is paid at the same rate as union labour, no work will

be done at the stores. In an interview with the Daily Times yesterday, the secretary ..of the Port Chalmers Waterside ; Workers Union, Mr James Bain, claimed that an agreement with the union of over 30 years’ standing had been broken by the management of the Shaw, Savill Company, through its decision to pay union labour supplied by the Watersiders’ Union at 3s s|d an hour for ordinary time, and to pay nonunion labour 3s an hour, plus the two cost-of-living bonuses. Mr Bain said that the management claimed that it was entitled to differentiate between union and nonunion workers in the matter of payOn the other hand, the union claimed that there was no reason why an agreement which had been in operation for over 30 years should be broken Non-union men who worKea in the wool stores expected to be paid at the same rate as the union workers, and the union supported this attitude. Mr Bain added that the wool store employees at Port Chalmers did the whole of the work of unloading tn p wool on its arrival at the company s stores, pressing and baling it. and then loading it into ships at the port The management, he said, contended that the union should create a dispute over the matter, but the union regarded it as just a matter of confirming past procedure. Mr Bain added that the attitude adopted by the union would not have any effect on the wool stores in Dunedin. The representatives of the company denied any knowledge of the matter when it was referred to them yesterday.