ONLY 20 CONCERNED

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1937, Page 8

ONLY 20 CONCERNED

AWARD FOR RADIO ELIJCTRICIANS. COURT POSTPONES DISPUTE. On being informed* that only about 20 workers in the Taranaki industrial district would be affected, Mr. Justice O'Regan decided on Saturday that the Arbitration Court would not make a Taranaki award for radio electricians until a similar dispute had been decided in the Auckland district. •• . Mr. H. J. Patterson appeared for the workers and Mr. V. Duff for the employers. , Mr. Patterson reviewed the development of the industry at considerable length and said it was a new one in this district. So rapid had been the development of the radio business in New Zealand that the number of licenses was now approaching the quarter-miUion mark, and the various stations maihtained practically a continuous service. The workers asked for a 40-hour week and a graduated wage scale. In regard to the inatter of wages, he said that in no other industry in this district was there sqch evidence of sweated labour. Several witnesses were called as to th® conditions obtaining in Taranaki. Mr. Duff submitted that the h?Iy?t?y» which was scarcely an industry in T?f3" naki, should not be caUed uppn to c'onsent to an agreement that rriight b® taken » as a precedent for other districts. Th® . Taranaki district shouM wait until conditions were forrnulated in a district jn which the industry was really established. He said the employers had been willing to concede the conditions made in an agreement reached in Canterbury. but the union would not accept them.