WORK AND WAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2053, 13 April 1907, Page 3

WORK AND WAGES.

TROUBLE AMONG THE FELLI MONGERS.

On Thursday aftornoon some trouble occurred among the iollmongcrs at the Kaiti freezing works. For some time past there had been quarrelling among tlio men in the iollmongery department about tho recent strike and the Arbitration Court proceedings. The trouble came to a head oil Thursday afternoon, when two of the men had a stand-up fight. It is an unwritten law of. the works that men fighting during hours of work shall be dismissed, and the man who was hold by the management to be tlio aggressor in this case was given his walking papers. The other men in the department held that the man who had not been punished was the aggressor, and “struck” work as a protest against his retention and tho discharge of the other man. Iliey applied on Thursday evening to bo reinstated in a body, but to this the management would not agree. Yesterday morning fifteen of the men were not at their posts, and their positions were filled, the work not being interfered with. It would seem from the action of the parties that tho men wish to consider their action as a union one, and that the management will not take that view—the men were not taken on again in a body, but all individuals who applied were reinstated.

Mr. Georgeson, tho local inspector of factories, investigated the trouble, and paid a visit to the works yesterday afternoon! He interviewed Mr. Jackson, the secretary of the Slaughtermen’s Union, under whose award the follmongers work, but Mr. Jackson said that he knew very little of the affair. The butchers would not bo affected by tlio trouble, which, he thought, would soon be satisfactorily settled.