NEW AWARD SOUGHT

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 13

NEW AWARD SOUGHT

Builders’ And General Labourers SUBMISSIONS TO COURT - ’.bhe hearing by the Court of Arbitration of the application for a new Dominion award to cover builders’ and general labourers was continued yesterday when the ease for the applicant union was completed and the case for the employers was partially completed. Eleven witnesses were called for the union. Three witnesses gave evidence yesterday for the employers. The hearing will be concluded today, when the remaining three witnesses for the employers will give evidence, after which the carpenters’ and joiners’ dispute will begin.

Dealing with the submissions made by Mr. P. M. Butler, advocate for the union, Mr. W. J. Mountjoy, for the employers, contended ' that the. union was seeking an unnecessary classification of workers by claiming that new types of work were ever increasing with the development of new methods in operation. In this schedule Mr. Butler sought 2d. an hour above the minimum rate for wheeling barrows on raised platforms and scaffolds, 2d. an hour extra for crusher feeders, and an increase for men carrying materials up a height greater than six feet. Mr. Mountjoy said that this was work that had been performed by labourers on the minimum wage for years. There was nothing new in the work, and the classification appeared merely an attempt to secure increases in wages.

Australian labourers’ awards were quoted by Mr. Mountjoy to show that tlie New Zealand worker was far better off under the current, labourers’ award. He opposed the weekly rate for builders’ labourers and cited the Public Works Department and others whose labourers were paid on an hourly basis. 'To introduce weekly rates of pay tor building trade labourers in New Zealand, with its climatic conditions would result in a serious and unwarranted increase in the cost of production, claimed Mr. Mountjoy, who urged that the Court’s standard rate pronouncement of 1937 should be the wages fixed for tlie workers. He also asked that 'the term of the award should be fixed for not less tlian two years.