SKILLED RATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 4

SKILLED RATES

CLOTHING WORKERS ARBITRATION COURT CLAIM JUDGE RAISES STABILISATION QUESTION P.A. WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. Eighteen years’ labour to secure recognition of clothing trade employees as skilled workers had been defeated by the manner in which the court had applied the recent wage increase to this industry, declared Mr John Roberts for the New Zealand Clothing Trades Employees’ Federation in the Court of Arbitration. Mr Roberts asked the court to review its finding and to restore male workers to the skilled workers’ rate and grant further increases also to female workers and apprentices. An amendment was sought to the wages clauses in the New Zealand clothing trades employees’ award, the New Zealand (except the northern industrial district) dressmakers and milliners’ aivard, and the New Zealand shirt, white and silk workers’ award. Whereas the court had fixed the minimum wage for. adult male machinists at £6 15s 9d a week, the applicants sought £7 3s 4d, the equivalent of the court’s new standard rate of 3s 7d an hour for skilled workers multiplied by 40 to convert it to a 40-hour week basis. For journeywomen the court had fixed a rate of £4 0s 9d a week, which the applicants asked should be increased to £4 6s, and increases were also sought for apprentices and juniors. Mr Roberts said that the court’s recent amendmeht to awards had had the effect of relegating clothing trade workers once more to the level of semi-skilled workers.

Mr C. G. Camp, secretary of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, appearing for the employers, said it had been the accepted and acknowledged opinion of assessors in • conciliation that only certain work .was recognised as work to be done by tradesmen. A group of assessors had met recently, and it was agreed not to oppose the union’s claims for adult journeymen up to £7 Is a week (the equivalent of 3s 6Jd an hour;. The employers’ assessors considered that 3s 6£d an hour should be the maximum.

Judge Tyndall said the court had been told that the clothing trade workers’ gains made in 1946 were the start of a series of claims which led to the recent new wage pronouncement. The increase given to the clothing workers in 1946 had a tremendous effect on the national economy. Would another increase not have the same effect?

Mr W. Cecil Prime, the employers’ representative on the court, said that when the clothing trade workers had the last increase other female workers thought they should have the same, and that Avould happen again. Mr Roberts said the recent decision of the court had already removed the margin clothing trade workers had over boot trade workers. Judge Tyndall: I don’t know liow you can stand there and ask for this and still be a member of the Stabilisation Commission, Mr Roberts. Mr Roberts: I say that costs are being held better in New Zealand, taking it all in all, than in any other part of the British Empire. Mr Roberts added that he had been seeking for the last 18 months to have the clothing workers moved up to the skilled rate and had achieved this only to have it taken away again. Equilibrium Upset Before Judge Tyndall: Well, the Federation of Labour said that your union was one of the first to upset' the equilibrium. Perhaps the fault lies with us, however, in not rejecting the increase agreed upon in conciliation in 1946. His Honor said that in making the recent adjustments the court had to take into account Regulation 39c, which ruled that the court had to have, when making the recent adjustments. due regard to any increases in rates of remuneration granted by the court since March, 1945. Decision was reserved.