WATERSIDE AGREEMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12689, 10 July 1919, Page 6

WATERSIDE AGREEMENT.

WAITING FOR DECEMBER. [Fxou Qua CoMaswwMmt.] WELLINGTON, July 9. In reporting to members of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Federation on- the _ agreement recently adopted securing increases of pay, the official, organ of the federation indicates that the whole question will have to be reopened next December, when the agreement in regard to genral working conditions will expire. The increased wages recently granted were made retrospective as from March 13, but the men’s official organ declares that it is not overjoyed over what has been obtained.. “The increases,” it states, “ barely meet the increased cost of living, and it is indeed doubtful if the standard of living of the watersider is now_ as high as in pre-war days. The difficulties the waterside workers, and in fact all • the progressive trade ■unions, have to face are the small increases which some of the trade unionists are:satisfied with, and until labour is organised to raise wages as a whole, there will be this dead weight to carry. The agreement has till the ®**d of 1919. to run, and we hope by that time the transport workers will .be so organised that they will be able to .secure not only an increase in wages bnt a shortening of the hours of labour and a general , improvement in the conditions of toil on the waterfronts.”