INCREASE REFUSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26782, 27 May 1948, Page 6

INCREASE REFUSED

CARPENTERS’ WAGES CLAIM NOT RECOGNISED RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER RATES RA. AUCKLAND, May 26. An application by the union for an amendment of the New Zealand (except Otago and Southland) carpenters and joiners’ award has been refused in a judgment issued by Judge Dalglish, deputy judge of the Arbitration Court. As the judge of the court, Judge Tyndall, had already adjudicated on this matter, he deputed the hearing of the application to Judge Dalglish in association with the other members of the court, Mr W. Cecil Prime and Mr F. C. Allerby. In his judgment, Judge Dalglish recalled that the court had amended the carpenters’ award by the order of August 21, 1947, with the effect that the minimum wage, which had been 3s 2d an hour, plus increases under the court’s ' general orders, was increased to 3s 7d an hour without the addition of these increases. The basis of the present application was that carpenters’ wages as fixed by the amendment of August, 1947 did not bear a proper relation to the wages of other workers in the building industry and that to restore or preserve the proper relationship carpenters’ minimum wages should be increased to 3s Bid an hour. The wages in respect of which the union claimed that a proper relationship did not exist were the wages of fibrous plasterers and of plumbers and gasfitters, who were entitled to receive a minimum of 3s Bjd an hour. The union submitted that the court was under duty to restore or preserve the relationship of the various awards after April 1, 1945. In the opinion of the court that was not a correct interpretation of the regulations. Such an interpretation would mean that the court could not, while the regulations remained in operation, make any award that varied the relationship between two different classes of workers even although the court was firmly of the opinion that a proper relationship did not exist with other wage rates. The court was authorised to amend court thinks fit,” having regard to faccourt thinks fit, “ having regard to factors mentioned in the regulations. It was clear that the two classes of workers to whose wages the applicant union especially referred were classes of workers whose rates of wages had been altered in relation to the rates of wages of other classes of workers in the building industry for special reasons. The court had found that the carpenters’ award of July 7, 1947, was one of those showing an upward tendency, and was in fact an illustration of an award under which wage rates were given that disturbed what, in the opinion of the court, was a proper relation- , ship. The rates of wages of painters had at all material times been precisely the same, as the rates of wages of carpenters. The rates of wages of bricklayers and of plasterers other than fibrous plasterers were about lid in advance of those of carpenters, and. generally speaking, the rates of wages of electricians, roofers, and tilers were the same as those of carpenters. The court declined the application. The workers’ representative on the court, Mr Allerby. recorded a dissenting opinion when the former applica- • tion was unsuccessful before the court. He said he had recorded a dissenting opinion in which he stated that a case could be made out for an increase in the skilled rate, and he was still of that opinion.