DRIVERS’ DISPUTE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20374, 3 July 1934, Page 8

DRIVERS’ DISPUTE.

Employees Make Application

for Award,

Having worked for eighteen months without an agreement, employers and employees of the driving and carting trade discussed their difficulties at a meeting of the Conciliation Council today, the Commissioner (Mr S. Ritchie) presiding. The assessors for the employers w’ere Messrs H. J. Otlev, T. S. Young. C. E. Otjey and D. I. Macdonald. The employees were represented bv Messrs H. H. M’Caw, W. Curtis. G. T. Thurston and E. Parlane, with Mr J. Roberts acting as agent. The employees submitted, proposals asking for a forty-four hour week, exclusive of the lime required for attendance to horses and motor vehicles, with special provisions for seasonal workers, and asking for overtime for work in excess of eight and a half hours a day. The following minimum weekly rates of wages were proposed—-One-horse driver, £4 2s 6d; two-horse driver, £4 5s fid (with an extra rate of 6d per day for each horse in excess of two); motor vehicle up to two tons, £4 5s 6d; two to four tons. £4 8s; four to five and a half tons, £4 10s 6d: five and a half to ten tons. £4 3 3s; over ten tons, £4 15s fid; tractor drivers. £4 10s 6d; drivers engaged in carting condemned meat and offal. Is per day extra.

The counter-proposals of the employers provided for a forty-eight-hour week, exclusive of time required for attendance to horses and motor vehicle**, with suecial provisions for seasonal work. Payment for overtime was offered for work in excess of ten hours a day.

The minimum weekly wage-* offered by the employers were:—One-horse driver, £3 11s 4d; two or more horse driver. £3 13s fid; motor vehicle un to two tons. £3 11s 4d; two to four tons, £3 15s 9d: four to five and a half tons, £3 17s 9d; over five and a half tons. £4 Is; over ten tons, £4 3s fid: tractor drivers, £3 17s; drivers of tractors used for road making. 3s 9d an hour.

The employers asked for libertv to employ youths as drivers, these youths to he over sixteen years of age, and offered the followine rates of pnv Vouths sixteen to eighteen years, £i eighteen to nineteen years. £1 3 ss; ninel teen to twenty years', £2 ss: twenty to twenty-one yea>*«?. £2 1 5s. Pavment for overtime was offered at the rate of time and a quarter. A general discussion took place during the morning, but there was no agreement on any clause when the luncheon adjournment was taken.