FREEZING WORKERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 119, 18 April 1940, Page 9

FREEZING WORKERS.

PREPARATORY AVOIiK PROVISION Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 17. The two-day hearing of the New Zealand (except Westland) freezing workers’ dispute was concluded in the Court of Arbitration to-day. The parties conferred privately on a number of matters, the only question argued in Court being that of preparatory work, Decision was reserved on this point. The union asked for the deletion altogether of the preparatory work clause in section ono of tho award. It was contended that the employers had endeavoured to widen the application of the clause to an unreasonable extent and had claimed exemption from overtime for a large number of operations, which the union did not admit came within ’the scope of the preparatory work. For the employers, Air J. ,T. Evans said tho clause had been originally inserted in the award in 19111 for the very purpose it now served, and had been retained ever since. The employers considered that, unless the union could show that any new conditions had arisen, the clause should be retained. Air Evans submitted that rigid times could not he observed in tlie same manner in nil works, particularly in respect of meat and skins, and that a certain amount of elasticity in regard to preparatory work was necessary to allow the normal progress of work’. The employers asked for no innovations, hut simply a continuance of what had been customary in the past.