LABOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXI, Issue 12480, 17 September 1904, Page 3

LABOUR.

strike OF COTTON GIRLS. RIOT ON A SMALL SCALE. Press Association—Per Electric 'Telegraph—Copyright. Received.J-0.40 p.m., September 16th. LONDON, September 16. The: gir3s Employed at the Curz'on cotton mills, Aslittm-imder-Lyne, have struck, leijising to- ejean the -machinery after hours. ' Eighty .'fresh girls having been engaged "at Oldham. 1000 sympathisers with the strikers, threw bricks, stones, and pepper at the blacklegs. Hundieds of police had difficulty in protecting the fresh girls on their journey from the mills to their homes, whence they were conveyed in omnibuses with the winr dows boarded up.

Received 1.8 a.m., September 17th. SYDNEY, September 16. The Stockton colliery was rendered idle to-day owing to the management refusing to give a definite pledge not to enforce the reductions, pending the Arbitration Court's decision. BREACH OF AN AWARD. WELLINGTON, Septeriiber 16.

A local hairdresser was proceeded against in the Magistrate's Court by the Inspector of Factories, for keeping an employee engaged for a longer time than is provided for under the Shops and Shop Assistants Act. The defence was that the employer had been guided by the Arbitration Court award, but the Magistrate held tftat where the award conflicted with the statute the award could not hold. A nominal fine was imposed. •THE ARBITRATION COURT. • CHRISTCHURCH,'September 16. The Arbitration Court sat this morning. Isabella McDonald was granted £2OO out. of £4OO compensation paid by the Shaw Savill for the death of her husband. The remaining £2OO was set apart for the children.

For failing to indenture apprentices, W. Gray and Son were fined £5. Edward Welsh £5, and Thomas Danks £5. For failing to pav the minimum wage, W. Greig and Son, Edward Welsh, John Hammett, H. N. Bates, and-Milner and Thompson were fined £2 each, and T. and N. Line £3. For accepting less than the minimum wage R-. A. Glover and W. Fisher were fined 10s each.

At the Arbitration Court, the General Labourers' Union charged Graham and Greig, builders, with a breach of award in dismissing; a unionist while retaining three non-unionists on the job. The case was on the ground \that the three men were specially employed, but incidental reference was made to the preference clause in the labourers' .agreement. It states merely that .preference must be given to unionists, and the Court characterised this as the vaguest .preference clause the Court had seen in an industrial agreement, and' one which made misunderstandings easily possible.