Dairy Employees and Arbitration.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 13, 2 June 1911, Page 13

Dairy Employees and Arbitration.

The Taranaki Dairy Factory Employees' Industrial Union of Workers was formed at a representative meeting of factory employees held at Eitham on 20th November, 1910. It was formed for the purpose of endeavouring to secure better labour conditions for the workers in the butter and cheese factories of Taranaki. It was decided then that the Union would not register itself xinder the Arbitration Act. This decision was arrived at (and subsequently confirmed at other meetings) after careful consideration and the fullest discussion. The reason for taking this course was as follows : —The award at present in force is based on one made by the Arbitration Court in the case of the Wellington Province Dairy Factories, its two main provisions are a 70-hour week of 7 days with wages varying from 37s 6d per week for ordinary hands to 50s per week for first assistants and in certain specified cases 55s per week for the latter. This award came into force in October, 1909, and gives a lower scale of remuneration than prevailed previously. The Workers' Union that was represented at the Conciliation Conference when this award was made was a weak organisation, and advantage was taken of this weakness by the representative of the Employers' * Federation to enforce ac ceptance of the Wellington award on the Union. Since the award has been in force wages have decreased and consequently there is more dissatisfaction in the industry at the present time than at any previous time in its history. Our reasons then for refusing to register under the Arbitration Act are as follows : — The Arbitration Court when asked to make an award in any particular industry invariably takes the existing award as a basis for the new one it is proposed to make; we hold that no award will be satisfactory which is based on the existing one. By registering the Union under the Arbitration Act the employers can compel us to go to the court, which is equivalent to forcing an unsatisfactory award upon the industry. In this aspect of

An Important Manifesto.

tlie matter we have tlie experience of the Wellington Dairy Factory Workers' Union to guide us. This "Union went to the Arbitration Court on September 30th last year to point out that the court in drawing up the 1909 award had been misled by certain evidence put before it, and consequently had blundered. The president of the Court simply refused to listen to it, and while practically admitting that the Court had blundered, yet refused to depart from the basis of the award previously made, which was admittedly an employers' award. The Taranaki Union is now in the position that the Wellington Union Avas in then, and has no reason, to expect any different treatment. Ckir position, then, is this, that by registering under the Act and then entering into conference with the employers, we simply put ourselves into the position of having to accept the Wellington award if offered to us, and that it arid nothing but it shall be offered us is without doubt the policy of the Employers' Federation. A conference under such conditions would to our minds, be simply a farce, and in asking us to agree to register before meeting them, the employers know that in effect they are saying to us "Yes, we will meet you in conference as you have requested, but you must first of all agree to accept the Wellington award." The award which they thus wish us to accept provides a wage for cheese factories which works out at from 7 l-sth pence per hour to S 4-7ths pence (this last for first assistants only).- The hours are 70 per week of 7 days. To obtain some improvement on those conditions we have formed our Union. We believe that when the general public get to know the labour conditions prevailing in this most prosperous of all our industries their sympathy will be with us. It is surely "time in this so-called "Workers;' Paradise" that men did not require to work 7 days a week for a bare living.—Yours, etc., J. ROBERTSON, Secretary. Taranaki Dairy Factories Employees' Union.