TIPS FOR STEWARDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3205, 18 August 1915, Page 72

TIPS FOR STEWARDS.

ARBITRATION COURT’S AWARD FLOUTED (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, August 12. Although clause 24 of the award of <he cooks and stewards of the Union Steam Ship Company reads:—"No worker coming within the scope of this award shall accept any : tip ’ from any passenger ” after August 1, the clause appears to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Passengers to Wellington state that it is their experience that since August 1, when to accept a tip became a breach of the award, stewards have shown no repugnance to pocket gratuities—no reluctance to rid themselves of the "degradation of having to augment wages ” Ay what practically amounts to soliciting alms from passengers. Passengers themselves, it seems, connive at the stewards’ action in this matter. A well-known lawyer coming up from -ha south was seen to give a. steward half-a-crown. He was asked if ho was npt in accessory to a breach of the award as affecting tips. “Not at all,” he replied, “ I asked tlio man to get my bath ready, and then to buy me a newspaper. I gave him half-a-crown for the newspaper.” Another passenger overcame the difficulty by giving the steward half-a-crown and asking him if he thought it was a good coin. The steward said it appeared to bo quite good, and pocketed it with a smile. The way a steward is said to have put it to a passenger on the East Coast run was this: "No tips after August I—no luggage removed after that date.” The clause in the award appears to be practically a, dead letter already, and likely to be, notwithstanding the court's representations to the men to give full effect to it. This state of affaiis is assisted by the fact that, while it is a broach of the award for stewards to take tips, the scope of the award does not take in the passenger who persists in paying for. and is prepared to so award, any little attention paid to nira when at sea.