WORK ON WATERFRONT

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1932, Page 5

WORK ON WATERFRONT

TERMS OFFERED BY EMPLOYERS. FREEDOM TO SHORTEN HANDS. ' ' The employers’ terms for a new award, which the waterside workers have rejected by ballot, are designed to bring wages and conditions more into line with present economic conditions. • ; ' The employers seek to reduce the basic rate of wages by a little over 2d an hour, namely, from 2s 4d an hour, less 10 per cent., to Is lid.. Their main endeavour, however, is to do away with a number of working conditions which compel them to pay men -for time in which no work is performed. Provisions in the old award, it is claimed, have brought the wage for actual working time up to about 4d an hour above the award rates. Reductions are also proposed in the extra rates payable for working in lighters at roadstead ports and for work-

ing special cargoes. These range from 3d .an hour for lightering and working coal, to 4d for case oil and frozen meat, to 9d for bulk phosphate and sulphur. The reductions vary from id to Ad an hour. :

Work at present is limited to the period from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The employers, however, seek power to work cargo, if necessary, all round the clock in three shifts at ordinary overtime for the 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift, and at the special overtime rate for work between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., w’ith a suitable adjustment for work done on Saturday afternoons and evenings. The object of this provision is to meet emergencies, such as that arising when a large overseas vessel has to work much cargo through one hatch only.

No alteration in the overtime rates is proposed. For work done on holidays between 8 a.m.-and 5 p.m., ordinary overtime is to be paid, and special overtime thereafter.

So far as general working conditions are concerned, the employers have submitted a number of new clauses designed to give greater freedom to shorten hands or transfer men in the course pf a job. Under the present award, when a gang of men is engaged to .work a particular vessel, the whole gang must be employed and paid, with certain limited exceptions, so long as the job lasts, or, in other words, until the hatches are put on and the vessel is made ready for sea.

It is contended that conditions as between the unloading and loading of a particular vessel may differ considerably and that the employer should have a right to shorten hands, for example, if cargo arrives intermittently and all the original gang is therefore not required for loading. The right is also sought to put off men when the actual working of cargo has been completed and a portion of the gang is replacing beams and hatch-covers. As things are, those not so engaged receive payment for sitting on the wharf and waiting for their mates to finish.

One desired economy is the abolition of the extra payment of 4d an hour which the award allows to men working a ship in which there is any quantity, however small, of inflammable cargo, such as case-oil. In the light of experience it is considered that the risk from such cargo is negligible and that there is no ground for paying extra to men other than those actually working such cargo.