MARGINS FOR SKILL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31098, 29 June 1966, Page 6

MARGINS FOR SKILL

Printers Granted Up To 30% (New Zealand Preu Association* WELLINGTON, June 28. The Arbitration Court today granted increased margins for skill in the printing industry 7 and said that its decision was based on principle rather than expedience. The Court changed job classifications in the award in an attempt to differentiate between the amount of skill required by the various jobs, and in doing so agreed more often with employers’ final submissions than with the union’s.

The award establishes the skill margin in the industry at about 30 per cent above the general hand’s rate.

When the Federation of Labour first went to the Court for increased margins, the percentage it suggested was 36 per cent.

The reserved decision was signed by Judge A. P. Blair, President of the Court. The employers’ case had been handled by Mr P. J. Luxford, end the union’s case by Mr T. E. Skinner. The new award establishes e top rate of £lB 12s (for linotype mechanics) and a bottom rate of £l4 5s (for general hands). The basic increase for skilled workers is 32s 9d a week.

The award gives 7s 6d a week extra to journeymen with trade certificates, and £1 to those with advanced trade certificates. The court refused a threeweeks’ annual leave claim, for everyone—at present it is after 10 years—but introduced a long service leave of an extra two weeks’ special holiday after 20 years, a special three-weeks’ extra holiday after 30 years, and an extra five weeks' special holiday after 40 years.

“XOT LAST WORD” Judge Blair said in a memorandum that the new award was a firm step towards increasing and improving margins for skill in the printing industry. “Our decision is. of course, not the last word on margins, nor can we hope that it is universally popular. It is impossible to carry out a surgical operation without some discomfort to the patient In our view, however, the final result will be a healthier

wage structure in the printing industry.”

He said an attempt had been made to decide all matters on the basis of principle rather than expedience, following the principles set out in the Court’s earlier decis-

ions on skill margins. Margins would alter from time to time, according to changes in the industrial and economic life. These changes should be reflected in the wage structure. RELATION TO SKILL

He said the Court had tried to relate marginal differences in the wages scale to degrees of skill. It did not treat semiskill or partial skill as equivalent to real skill. This did not mean an erosion of the tradesmen's job, as some workers feared, because there was a continuing demand for all skilled and semi-skilled workers. Tradesmen must be paid at

tradesmen's rates even if they be asked from time to time to do a job which did not actually require the skill of a tradesman.

It was fallacious to argue that the Court was effecting a wage reduction by instituting the present margins for skill—in the main it was giving a relatively greater increase to those workers whose skill, etc., justified it, he said. The Court has differentiated between linotype operators on display setting and those on straight setting, giving the former a 7s 6d a week margin. It agreed with the employers’ submission that the operator of a small off-set machine, if he was not a journeyman, should be paid

less than the journeyman rate —the Court established £l5 5s as the appropriate rate. Similarly, the operator of a head-lining machine has been placed on a lower rate, £l4 ss.

Girls who operate typesetting perforator machines have been separated from linotype operators and placed on a lower rate of £l6 10s. PART-TIME WORK The Court has agreed with

employers that a compositor's rate should be paid only to journeyman compositors doing paste make-up, and not to others. The Court has also given employers the right, under the award, to employ parttime workers—at the appropriate wage rate, plus 10 per cent. It said this provision should not harm the full-time worker, but if it did the matter could be brought before the Court again. The new award also makes a larger number of minor changes. The new award rates are effective on March 2 last, and all other provisions date from June 27.