MEAT WORKERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 763, 21 July 1916, Page 10

MEAT WORKERS.

SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION. AN AUSTRALIAN DELEGATE. With reference to the proposed amalgamation of all the unions and workers in the New Zealand meat trade, Mr C. H. Anderson, secretary of the Australian Meat Workers' Federation, has now been communicated with, and definite proposals made regarding the early visit of an Australian organiser to this country. The suggested itinerary for the delegate is that he should arrive in Wellington to commence operations about the second week in January, and afterwards go on to Masterton, Napier, Gisborne, Auckland, Marton, and Taranaki. A further scheme will be prepared for the South Island. At the conclusion of the delegate's tour there will be a conference of representatives of all the freezing works in New Zealand for the purpose of completing the organisation.

FINES FOR LOAFING. NEW CLAUSE IN INDUSTRIAL AGREEMENT. An important clause having a bearing upon the provision of work for returned soldiers was agreed upon between the Electrical Workers' Union and the ejnployers in the recent Conciliation Council proceedings. The clause in question is as follows: SOLDIERS AS WIREMEN. An apprentice obtaining a firslclass wireman's license during the period of his apprenticeship may elect to be immediately classed as a journeyman, whereupon his apprenticeship shall cease and he shall be paid in acordance with clause 2. The effect of the adoption of the clause will be that apprentices who have passed the theoretical test, necessary to obtain a wireman's license, man claim, if they so desire, journeymen's wages, and as there is no legal limitation to the age of apprentices the way is open for absorption of returned soldiers into a branch of industry badly in need of skilled labour. A NEW PRINCIPLE. A principle quite new i;i Labour agreements has been embodied in that at which the electrical workers have just arrived. Hitherto the rule as between the worker and his employer has been that the employee discovered loafing on the job is sacked, but under the new electrical workers' agreement the employer's given the alternative of prosecuting the offending worker for breach of the award. The following is the clause:—Any worker subject to this award must devote the whole of his working time to the best interests of his employer. It is understood that the idea originated in the mind of the city electrical engineer, and was suggested by the great scarcity of electrical wiremen.

Prosecutions for "loafing" arc now a possible feature of Magistrate's Court proceedings.