THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3794, 12 August 1936, Page 2

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

NEW PROBLEMS TO BE FACED. WHEN IS AN OFFICE NOT AN OFFICE? "Optimistic dairy farmers who consider that practically the sole function of a dairy company director is to fix the monthly pay out, and that he will consequently have very little to do now, would have received a surprise had they attended the monthly meeting of any dairy company board this week,” said a member of the industry to a newspaper reporter. “The agenda was overloaded with problems relating to the present industrial dispute to be heard before the Arbitration Court this week; requests from the Dairy Produce Board for tabulated monthly statistics showing in detail the effect of rising prices in the factories and on the farms; legal opinions as to whether a dairy company’s clerical staff should come under the Factories’ Act or the Shops and Offices Act; suggested scales of salaries put forward by the Factory Managers’ Association and the proposed Dairy Company Secretaries’ Association, etc." A CHINESE PUZZLE. By no means the most important, but certainly the most amusing aspect of these new problems was whether the clerical staff ot a dairy company should register under the Factories Act or the Shops and Offices Act. Proving to be too complicated for directors and their executives, the matter was duly referred by the National Dairy Association to their solicitor, Colonel Cunningham. The solicitor's opinion is lengthy and somewhat complicated, but to a layman it would seqm that, if there is a separate enranceto.the office, and a hedge growng between the office and the factory, ne clerical staff must register under ill© Shops and Offices Act; but even though there is a separate entrance, r there is no hedge—in other words a' the same boundary fence encloses lie factory and the office—the clerlal staff must register under the actories Act! Anyone disputing this .earned opinion may peruse for hlmalf the case of Keddie v. the South Canterbury Dairy Co., 26 N.Z.L.R., page 522; IX Gazette Reports, page 1,15. FACTORY MANAGERS' CLAIMS. Dairy companies have been notified that an agreement has been reached by some mysterious body known as the Dairy Company Employers’ Awards Committee and the Factory Managers’ Association, and that it uas been decided to form an Industrial Union of Managers under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The salary claimed for factories ranging from 1500 to 2000 tons of butter ranges from 2550 to £570 per annum, "with free suitable residence or allowance therefor, and usual perquisites consisting of butter and fuel, and three weeks’ holiday each year, or equivalent in salary as per scale." DAIRY SECRETARIES. “Not to be outdone, dairy company secretaries are considering the formation of an ‘association,’ probably on the grounds that they are rather too superior to form a union,” said the executive, with a twinkle in his eye. “Some of the leading secretaries, however, do not view the movement with favour, on the grounds that there are as many different grades of secretaries as there are differential grades of butter under the Government’s new scheme, and they object to being ‘flattened out’ to one level; but no doubt they will be compelled to come into line.” But the greatest problem of all, he said, had still to be tackled by dairy company directors—namely, what was a safe monthly advance payment to make under the new scheme, owing to the uncertainty of the increased costs of the factory, and the length of time the butter may be kept in cool store before the Government pays for it.