LABORERS’ DISPUTE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18181, 31 August 1933, Page 6

LABORERS’ DISPUTE

NEW AWARD SOUGHT QUESTION OF COUNTIES CONCILIATION COUNCIL A sitting of the Conciliation Council was held in Gisborne to-day to hear a dispute in regard to the employment oi builders and general laborers. An application for a new award was made by the Gisborne Builders and Contractors’ Industrial Union of Employers, and the respondent was the Poverty Bay and East Coast Builders, Contractors and General Laborers’ Industrial Union of Workers. The assessors for the employers were Messrs. George Smith, Archie Kirk, James Webb, and M. J. White, while the workers’ assessors were Messrs. T. Murray, W. Webb, D. McLeod and C. K. Bickford. The Conciliation Commissioner, Mr. P Halley, presided. A feature of the dispute was the exclusion of the Cook and Waikohu counties from the schedule submitted by the employers as parties to the proposed hew award. The Gisborne Harbor Board was included. The two counties mentioned were parties to the- old ■award,' and'attempts yewr.iha.de* Iq ’Have their names deleted, in View' of the fact that the award rate provided for the payment of Is 8d an hour, less 10 per cent.,' whereas Public Works ' Department and Main Highways Board’s' Subsidies were being paid on the public Works basis of Is 3d and Is 4d an hour. An application to the Arbitration Court at its recent Gisborne sitting failed because the Court had no power to make the deletion.

One of the main points in dispute was the matter of wages. The employ ers asked that building trade laborers engaged in the construction of scaffolds’ and those assisting in the construction and demolition of scaffolds and buildings should be paid for at the rate of Is 6d an hour. For tunnel work, tunnel men and timber men should be paid at Is 7d an hour, Is for quarry men using explosives and Is 6d for other quarry workers, other general laborers to receive Is 6d. In the counter-claim, the workers asked that laborers constructing scaffolds be ""paid at 2s Id an hour, those assisting m the erection or demolition of scaffolds or buildings be paid at Is 10d an hour, tunnel men and timber men 2s Id, quarry work with explosives Is lljd> other quarry workers Is lOd, and other general laborers Is lQd, except asphalt workers at Is lid. Both parties agreed on a 44-lipur week as the standard. The workers objected to piece work, except in the matter of co-operative contracts with the Harbor Board, provided the terms of the agreement were approved by the workers’ union. The employers urged that the payment of yduths should be from 6d an hour to Is an hour between the ages of 17 and 20, the workers’ proposals in this respect being £1 5s to £2 15s per week. The employers asked that the term of the award be for onb year, but no suggestion was made by the workers in their preliminary application on this point.