ARBITRATION COURT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2505, 5 July 1915, Page 9

ARBITRATION COURT

MASTERS' AND OFFICERS' AWARD. ' ; a DIFFICTJLT adjustment. On Saturday morning there was filed the award of -the Court'of Arbitration w the dispute between the Wellington Merchant Service Guild and sixteen owners of vessels'of gross registered tonnage not less than 100 tons and not more than 600 tons. The award will come into force on August 2 next, and will operate for a period'of two years. In a, memorandum attached to the award the Court says"The Court has had great difficulty in making this award bwing'to the fact that the services affected are conducted under such variable conditions. The union sought to havo provisions inserted so as to secure payment for overtime to the officers as to the seamen. The Court, however, lias been unable to adopt this course, as doing so would -havo placed:, _ the officers in. a position in - which their interests vi'ould havo conflicted with their duty, which is to minimise overtime as far as possible. The Court was satisfied; moreover, by'the ovidence brought beforo. it that the extra cost entailed by such! a provision would probably have resulted in several of the ships affected being put out of commission,'or at any rate being worked at heavy loss. The Court realises the anomalous conditions at present existing under which a seaman's earnings are_ sometimes greater than officers', but it canhot see its ,way to remove this anomaly with a due regard to the employers' interests. The Court was therefore placed - in the dilemma of either refusjng to make any award or to give somo increase in the fixed pay of the masters and officers, and it has, with some hesitation, adopted the latter alternative in the hope that, while settling the dispute between the employers and their, employees, it would not involve tho former in greater exnenso than they could reasonably bear." The ratos of pay for masters are fixed by the Court at £25 per month whero only one mate is carried, and £23 10s. per month where two mates are carried. , Qhief officers tq. rscW'.o £19 ;P£r

month, and second" officers £15 per month. Provision is made for fourteen days' holiday annually oil full pay, and it is stipulated that, except in special Circumstances, an officer snail not bo kept at work continuously for more than twelve hours without an interval of at least four hours. The Court's preference clause is included, and there are special provisions as to work in home port, victualling allowance, and transfers.