ARBITRATION COURT

Hokitika Guardian, 20 March 1931, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT

COOKS AND STEWARDS. SOME ANOMALIES. (By Telegraph —Per Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 10. The .Arbitration Court in hearing a dispute affecting cooks and. stewards in the employ of coastal shipping companies. The union asks increased pay of approximately fifteen per cent, and the companies a reduction of about the same. Mr Bill sop, representing the employers, said wages since 1914 had been increased by about sixty per cent., but tlie actual earni"gs were .up to one hundred and fifty per cent, because of alternations in the contlitons of work. He s'id “Wo find assistant stewards drawing from £204 to. in one extreme case. £4OO a year, plus limitk n op. Stewards and cocks from £275, £314 to £370. £3OB £415 and £531 per iiimm plus keen. Is it any wonder in f 'ce of thc-e figures that there is an outcry against the cost of transport, and ether sheltered industries in -*"ew Zealand. He asked where was our sense of .proportion. Tt was time we. faced the facts fairly and honestlv. The disparity between the earnings of those workers producing for export and those i” sheltered industries, must be removed. Fere is nerhaos the most glaring examnlc cf that disparity to lie found in the whole Dominion. Yfe confidently ask the Court to correct it.