DOMINION AWARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26641, 11 December 1947, Page 8

DOMINION AWARD

TAXI DRIVERS’ CLAIMS EARLY HEARING FIXED “CLEAN-UP’ 1 OF INDUSTRY Industrial Correspondent WELLINGTON, Dec. 10. The Court of Arbitration has agreed to the hearing of the claims df the New Zealand Drivers’ Federation for a new Dominion award for taxi drivers before Judge Stevens on Friday next in Wellington. This announcement is expected to avert a further stoppage in the taxi industry in Invercargill, where a stop-work meeting of drivers last Friday set to-morrow as the deadline for the announcement of a fixture in the Arbitration Court. The Invercargill drivers last week proposed that had no date been fixed by to-morrow a further stop-work meeting would have been held to determine future policy. It is expected that Judge Stevens wifi be able to complete the hearing within one day, and union officials hope that a decision may possibly be available before Christmas. Not only in Invercargill, but m all parts of the South Island and in the smaller North Island centres, there has been impatience among taxi drivers over delays in the hearing of their claims, Conciliation Councils in both Christchurch and- Wellington having failed to reach a settlement. A request that the Government should set up a commission to conduct a full inquiry into the taxi industry throughout the Dominion was made to the Minister of Transport, Mr Hackett, by a deputation representing the New Zealand Federation of Labour and the New Zealand Transport Workers’ Federation to-day. The deputation' asked that the proposed commission should inquire into every phase of the taxi industry. The Minister indicated that he was impressed by the representations made and that he would be quite prepared to discuss the proposal with Cabinet. A commission of inquiry into the industry was proposed some weeks ago by the Southland Trades Council, ■with the support of drivers’ organisations. The Invercargill taxi driers at a stop-work meeting last Friday, called for the setting up of a commission. The official journal of the Auckland Drivers’ Union, commenting on tne position of the industry, says that workers demand a clean-up. It declares that taxi proprietors are running a highly lucrative business, but starving their workers.