ARBITRATION COURT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3769, 23 July 1907, Page 3

ARBITRATION COURT.

Flaxmlllers’ Award. His Honour Mr Justice Sira, the President of the Arbitration Court, on Saturday forwarded to Mr W. A. Hawkins, Clerk of Awards, the Court’s decision in the industrial dispute between the Flaxmillers’ Union and their employers.

The award in the case of the flaxmillers, which affects fiftyeight employers, decides that the week’s work shall consist of fortyeight hours, and- each employer shall be entitled to arrange such hours of work according to the exisgencies of his own particular business. Such hours may he worked in shifts either by night or day, but the provisions of this clause of the award do not apply to cooks and their assistants. New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, the birthday of the reigning Sovereign, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day arc lo be recognised as holidays. Any time worked in any one week in extension of the hours prescribed shall be paid for at the rate of time * and a quarter for the first three hours and time and a half for all further time until the usual hour for commencing work. When overtime work is rendered necessary by reason of breakdown of the machinery causing stoppage of work cr by any other special emergency involving damage to property, only ordinary rates shall be paid. The following are to be the minimum rates of pay ; —(a) Feeders, is 3d per hour ; bench loaders and catchers, is id per hour ; washers (finding their own boots and aprons), is per hour ; headpaddockers, is hour ; assistant paddockers, sorters, and shakers, is per hour; rouseabout, io}4d per hour, (b) Drivers, for driving and attending to one or more horses, £2 6s per week. No deduction shall be made from this weekly wage for bad weather or for holidays, or for other cause than for time lost through the worker’s default, and this wage shall include attendance to horses on Sundays, week days, and holidays, (c) The worker who shall act as stripperkeeper shall receive not less than 2s 6d' per day in addition to the wages paid to him in his principal capacit} T , whether as feeder, engine-driver, or manager, (d) The minimum rates for piecework paddocking (which means and includes all work from taking the fibre off the poles and stacking the same in the scutching shed) shall be —From April Ist to September 30th (inclusive), 26s' per ton ; from October Ist to March 31st (inclusive), 21s per ton. When carting is done 5s per ton shall be added to the foregoing rates. (e) The minimum rate of pay for scutching shall be 28s per ton, scales shall be provided by the employer, (f and g) The rate for cutting flax and wages of cooks and their assistants shall be settled by agreement between the employer and the worker, (h) Labour not otherwise specified shall be paid at the rate of is per hour. Emploj’ers may employ youths in or about the work of flaxmilling at from 15s to 35s per week, according to ages between sixteen j’ears and twentj'-one. . In the case of the natives employed at Mr Rutherford’s mill at Waverley and at Mr Bourke’s mill at Wairoa, the Court has made an exemption from the operations of the award, and has reserved power to make similar exemptions in regard to other mills subject to the award.