SHEARERS AND SHED HANDS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17471, 3 June 1922, Page 3

SHEARERS AND SHED HANDS.

* (press association telegram.) WELLINGTON, Juno 2. As already announced tho Now Zealand Sheepowners' Federation has requested representatives of the shearers unions to meet them in Wellington this month to discuss the question ot making a new agreement for shearers and shedhands. The meeting will take place in the New Zealand Farmers' Institute on June 23rd, and the proposals of tho sheepowners will not be known before that date. .The rate for shearers in New Zealand is at present 2-ls per 100, plus a bonus of Is lOd, making a total wage of 25s lOd per 100. Shearers are oil members of the Now Zoaland Workers' Union and at the annual meeting of the N.Z.W.U. on Juno 15th, one of the first matters to bo considered will be that of what.wages shall be asked from the sheepowners for season. A number ot proposals have been submitted by various shearers unions, some of which suggest that a rate of not less than 30s per 100 should be claimed, while others want a demand made for 323 fid. One union (Motunau station) proposes that contract rates bo abolished in favour of a wage of £3 por week and found. Tho decision as to what claims shall be presented to the sheepowners will rest with the annual meeting of the N.Z.W.U., but in view of the improvement in the prices of wool, it is npt thought likely that anything less than the existing rate will bo agreed to. In Australia, with the exception of Queensland, shearers who belong to the Australasian Workers' Union with which tho N.Z. Workers' Union is affiliated are on strike as a protest against tho award of Mr Justice Powers, who granted a rate pf 30s per 100 and later made an increase to Sos. Australian shearers consider they should be paid £2 per 100, which was th» old rate and wage, which Mr Justice Oaiighlay, president of the Queensland Arbitration Court, recently refused to alter in that State.