ARBITRATION COURT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18965, 17 March 1924, Page 9

ARBITRATION COURT.

MARINE, COOKS AND STEWARDS’ DISPUTE. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, March 14. The hearing of the marine, cooks, and stewards ’ dispute was continued before the Arbitration Court, when Mr W. G. Smith, representative of the Union Coy, proceeded to .reply to the union ease. Mr Smith stated that as regards wages the union had received very large increases from the court as a basic wage in 1914 for a second grade steward on a cargo steamer was ,£4 per month, whereds under the existing award, which reduced the rate previously existing by the cost of living reduction, it was £l2 3s 4d per month, or an increase of 204 per cent. In addition to their money wages received from the employers, the court, in its last award, granted the stewards a further very substantial addition to their earning power by deleting the provision which prohibited “tips.” The value of those tips to stewards varied from £3 to £6 per month according to trade. Those figures were ascertained from “bunce” books which were kept prior to the abolition of tipping, and when all tips were pooled. ' Mr Kennedy—-Am I to l understand that Mr Smith is asking that tips be considered part of our wages, or that the court, in fixing out wages, is going to take tipping into consideration? His Honour—We are only looking at tips from an historical point of view. They were prohibited in 1915, and allowance was made for them of £2 10s per month. | Mr Smith—That was done at the oxi press wish of the union at the time.

His Honour—Anyway, it was a quid pro quid, but when the court restored the right to tipping it did not take away the increased amount.

Mr Kennedy.—lf the court is going to consider this point, wo must call evidence on this subject of tips. If this court has the slightest inclination to thus consider tips, then our side of the case would not have finished for another week. We would have required to call evidence on the matter. His Honour.—Wo would have cut vou short long before that. This case has been going on long enough. There has been quite enough irrelevance and repetition as it is. I have not pulled you up before, but it could not go on any longer. Mr Kennedy—There are quite 400 inen employed in our union who never get an opportunity of receiving a tip at all.

His Honour.—We know that men employed ob cargo boats get no tips. We are not looking at tips as a regular part of the men’s earnings. As a matter of fact, we know of the curse they are, but we are taking up the attitude that tips do not count as part of men’s wages.

Mr Smith, continuing, said the union proposal was in every respect an exact I repetition of the claim made in 1922, ; and in which they asked for the rate of 3/- per hour instead of the present rate of 2/-. The employers' proposal was that the rate should be reduced to 1/6 per hour, which was the rate fixed for galley staffs in 1918. The present rate of overtime was too high as compared with the rate of wages, and the high rate of wages was not only unfair ■to employers but it tended to slow down work, as by spinning out a job men could turn some of their hours of leisure to profitable account in working overtime. Any such proposal as an eight hour day was strongly objected to, and its effect would not be to reduce the hours of work but to increase overtime payments, or, in other words, the men would be paid overtime every day for performing their normal functions. Stewards pt sea did not keep watches, but were day workers, and at present had 14 hours of leisure every day. Even as it Was, New Zealand shipowners, who were competing with United Kingdom and United States vessels were already seriously handicapped, as on the vessels mentioned there was no limitation of hours at sea. The employers considered, as they did in 1922, that this union had forfeited any right to ask for such a previlego as preference. Immediately after the present award was made the Union took tho highly improper step of taking a ballet as to whether its members would work under the award or not. Instances and documents were quoted to show that the union’s members had been implicated in the seamen’s trouble of 1922. Tho preference clause in the current award was a most unusual and objectional one, which, although originally agreed between the parties under pressure and force of circumstances, should not be perpetuated. In the seamen’s award the court adopted the usual form, and if any preference at all was granted—and the employers strongly urged that it should not be—then it should be in the court’s usual form, with stringent safeguards against strike, job control and other attempts to defeat the award. | The employers suggested that there i should be inserted a clause in the award specifically prohibiting anything in the I nature of job control. | Mr Smith called evidence to show j that or board the Wahine there were l adequate facilities for stewards to have daily baths. ) Sydney Arthur Smith, chief' steward on the Wahine, said that on his boat there was a cold shower bath available for the Stewards, and the men were, in addition, free to use the bathrooms in the first salopn. His Honour—Men who gave evidence here yesterday were under the impression that if they were caught doing so there would be a vacancy next fiaorning. Witness. —The steward Who was reported to have said that came to me this morning and said that the papers had his statements wrong. His Tionour—Oh, he said it all right.