Bakers Get Wage Rise In New Award

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31107, 9 July 1966, Page 16

Bakers Get Wage Rise In New Award

The day of bakers’ boys being boarded with the baker were apparently over for ever, according to the new New Zealand Baking and Pastry Cooking Industry Employees Award, said the president of the Canterbury Master Pastry Cooks’ Association (Mr R. J. Walker) yesterday. The new award reached in conciliation, between the union and the employers, he said, would be effective from July -7, 1966, till January 7, 1968.

The main changes in the award, said Mr Walker, were increases in wages. A foreman’s rate had been Increased by £1 0s lOd to £lB a week minimum rate, while journeymen bakers or pastry cooks had had their minimum weekly wages increased by £1 a week to £l7. A clause that employers shall not provide any workers with board and lodging on their own premises was dropped for the first time. The clause having become redundant, because bakers did not live on, or adjacent to the job in New Zealand any more, said Mr Walker. Men or boys working for a baker in former times, he said, perhaps got a room and food at the baker’s house adjacent to the premises. This did not turn out very satisfactorily, which was probably the reason for inserting the clause into the award in the first place. Today, said Mr Walker, neither baker or staff lived on the job. It was an era of big bakehouses of the factory type, or shops in shopping areas, with cake kitchens behind them. A clause had been added to

the new award saying that where practicable no' worker should be required to work more than 14 hours continuously, he said. “I believe some bread factories were working their staff more than 18 and 19 hours on the long week-end,” said Mr Walker.

“They usually start baking about midday on Thursday and go right through till 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. on Friday. “I think a worker after 12 or 13 hours, has become a bit useless —you would not want to employ him.” Other increases in the new award were a 15s a week increase for all other adult males such as labourers, packers and bread-slicers, to bring their weekly minimum to £l4 ss, and an Ils 8d increase for journeywomen pastry cooks. Female juniors received increases ranging from 5s a week at 16 years, to 10s a week at 20 years, when they would now earn a minimum of £lO a week.