COTTON TRADE AWARD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 11

COTTON TRADE AWARD

BRITISH INDUSTRY BURDEN REDUCED BY £2,500,000 A YEAR British Official Wireless Reed. 11 a.m. RUGBY, Friday. It was learned in Manchester this afternoon that the effect of the wages cut of 6.42 per cent, awarded by the Arbitration Tribunal lightens the cotton industry’s financial burden by £2,500,000 a year, one big firm alone saving £75,000. Mr. Justice Rigby Swift, the chairman, said the employers had made out their case for a reduction in wages. He agreed that many factors had contributed to the present serious depression in the industry. The employees contended that there should not be a reduction in wages until the industry had otherwise put its house in order. The arbitrators’ task did not include the larger problem of the reorganisation of the industry, which a committee of the Bureau of Civil Research was investigating. The arbitrators were not convinced that a reduction in wages was the only remedy for the present state of affairs, but they were convinced that something must be done immediately to alleviate the present position, and they were unanimous that there should be some reduction in wages. The “Daily Herald” says that under the award 500,000 operatives will lose approximately Is 3d in the pound of their wages, instead of the 2s 6d asked by the employers.