DRIVERS' DISPUTE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2925, 10 November 1916, Page 7

DRIVERS' DISPUTE

ATTITUDE OF WELLINGTON UNION. The Wellington Drivers' Union has received a communication from the Auckland Union with regard to the terms of the award recently given by the Arbitration' Court, and is practically certain to endorse the protest made by the northern body. The proposal of the Auckland Union is that the Government should be urged to set up a board of inquiry to consider the terms of tho award, upon the following grounds:—

"(1) The dispute was filed 12 months ago, and there was unnecessary and apparently wilful delay by the Court jn delivering its judgment. (2) The attitude adopted by, the employers at each sitting of the Conciliation Council clearly demonstrated they were readily prepared to leave the matter in the "hands of Judge Stringer and Mr. Scott, the employers' representative, the employers refusing to consider any of the points at issue. (3) The rates and conditions laid down by the Court in the new award are. considerably less than awarded to any other trade or calling, in spite of the fact that Judge Stringer remarked, when tho dispute was being heard, that the drivers' rate of pay was a starvation wage. (4) Under the new award tho wages rate from IOJd. per hour to Is. per liour, the hours range from 52 to 60 por week, the rates .of pay cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered other than a starvation rate."

Tho drivers state that in seventeen years the Arbitration Court has advanced: their wages by no more than 6s. a week, while in tho same time other bodies of workers havo secured increases. to the- extent of from 12s. to los. 6d. per week'. "How can anybody tell us that £2 12s.' per week is a livinu wage?" said a Wellington driver yesterday. "Most of u's aro married men with families, and we are lucky if we pay less than los. per week as Tent. It is a starvation wage, and we are entitled to make a protest."