NO AGREEMENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20892, 23 November 1937, Page 4

NO AGREEMENT

DIFFERENCE OF ONE PENNY THRESHING DISPUTE With the workers claiming -2/2 an hour and the employers holding out at 2/1, no agreement was reached at a sitting of the Conciliation Council in Timaru yesterday when the South Canterbury threshing mill award was under consideration. The dispute was between the New Zealand Industrial Union of Workers (applicants) and the South Canterbury Threshing Mil] Owners’ Industrial Union of Employers. The Conciliation Commissioner (Mr S. Ritchie) presided. The assessors were: Employers, Messrs D. I. Macdonald (Christchurch), N. Hayman, J. Lithgow and E. M. Tozer, with Mr R. S. Goodman as agent. Employees, Messrs R. Eddy (Wellington), J. G. Leckie, T. Hannifan and B. R. Benny. In their statement of claim the applicants sought to secure a 44-hour week, to be worked between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., except on Saturday when work should cease at noon. It was also claimed that all hands except the driver, feeder and cook, should be paid 2/6 an hour and found. The rates for drivers should not be less than 4/- an hour, feeders 3/- an hour and «. joks £7 a week. Header harvester hands should not be paid less than 3/- an hour for drivers, and 2/6 an hour for other hands. Holidays should include Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day and the day following, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, and the King’s Birthday. Sunday threshing should be prohibited. The respondents’ counter-claim was the award entered into on November 16, 1937.

Mr Eddy intimated that the applicants were prepared to amend the hours of work set out in the claim to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on all days with the exception of Saturdays when the hours should be 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for stooks and from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. in stacks.

It was useless to attempt heading before 9 a.m., said Mr Hayman, who submitted that greater elasticity of hours should be permitted as far as the header was concerned. Mr Goodman asked that the hours for stook threshing on Saturdays should be extended from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Most of the clauses of the present award were agreed to, the chief obstacle being in regard to wages. Employers' Viewpoint Mr Macdonald said that the employers, who could see no reason for any increase on 1/11 an hour, could not for a minute entertain the workers’ proposal for 2/6 an hour. Mr > Eddy pointed out that the Arbitration Court had made a pronouncement in Auckland that wages were on the increase in New Zealand. That fact had been recognised by bodies of employers in the Dominion, and he thought that the men of South Canterbury were justified in receiving an increase. The South Canterbury dispute had not gone to the Court for years, but it was felt that if they went to the Court this year there would be an increase. If the workers were not serious at 2/6 the employers were not serious at 1/11. After a retirement the workers' assessors announced that the lowest they could accept was 2/2 an hour, the same scale as Otago and Marlborough. Mr Goodman: We cannot go over .2/-.

The employers’ assessors retired, Mr Macdonald announcing that in a final effort to reach an agreement they would offer 2/1 on condition that the Saturday hours were increased to 7 p.m.

Mr Eddy intimated non-acceptance of the offer, and the proceedings were adjourned sine die. An agreement regarding the wages for header harvesters was reached on the basks of 2/8 an hour for drivers and 2/6J for other hands on a 14-hour maximum day.