WAGES OF SEAMEN AND FIREMEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2135, 10 March 1908, Page 2

WAGES OF SEAMEN AND FIREMEN.

A £12.000 INCREASE PROPOSED* NO NEED FOR THE ARBITRAL TION COURT. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, March 9. T gather on reliable authority that the replies received from branches of the Seamen’s Union so far are largely in favor of the terms offered by the shipping companies at the recent conference. Some 2000 employees are concerned in the matter, and it is estimated that the proposed increase in wages will amount to £12,000 a year, of which the Union Company will have to pay fully £BSOO per annum. The main points of the agreement are approximately as follows:—The men, both deck-hands and firemen, •are to receive an increase of 10s a. month, and overtime for cargo is to be at the rate of Is 3d an hour. The overtime for ordinary shifts work remains as it' is at present, viz., Is per hour,, and Saturday afternoon-off at terminal ports has "been conceded to firemen except in exceptional c ises. Since 1897 a special arrangement in regard to time off has been in vogue in tile ferry service, and the men asked that- this arrangement be made general. It has been mutually agreed to extend it to the coastal trade oh the East Coast between Dunedin and Auckland, and as -on this run, tlio vessels usually arrive at a port in tlio morning and leave again' the same evening, the new arrangement will enable tho men to get time off to make up for the extra hours of duty they may bo called on to work. There is every likelihood now that tile whole question at issue will be settled without the intervention of tho Arbitration Court.