The Employers' Offer.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8683, 16 February 1907, Page 5

The Employers' Offer.

It has now been ascertained that the representatives of the Gear and Wellington Meat Export Companies have made two advances to the men, both of which have been rejected. The men's original wage was £1 per hundred '' all round,'' and their demand was for 255. On Thursday they were prepared to take 23s per hundred, but. the companies would only then concede 22s (3d—a sixpence standing between settlement and non-settlement.

At a late hour on Thursday the companies' representatives suggested 23s per hundred for freezers, and rates for "potters" and " preservers," showing an incroase on the Canterbury scale— 235, 17s and 14s—as against £1, 15s and 12s. Mr Cooper, secretary to the Slaughtormon's Union, states that he went up to Pctone yesterday morning, but the strikers thought so little of the companies' suggestion that they did not consider it worth meeting about—it was rejected without a conference. Yesterday morning the companies made another advance by offering 23s per hundred '' all round,'' but the strikers still stood firm. They argued that that figure had been suggested by them on Thursday, and was not agreed to. Now they would adhere to the demand for 25s per hundred, and be satisfied with nothing less. They would not be humbugged by the companies as had been the case during the past day or two.