Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 262, 26 January 1928, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

By

“ARBITER”

UNION MEETING DATES

Saturday, January 28 .. M Monday, January 30 Wednesday, February 1 Thursday, February 2 Next Sunday is the date of the Labour Party’s annual picnic. A ferry excursion will take the picnickers to Pine Island. The bakers’ picnic will be held at Henderson on February 12, when it is expected that about 180 people will travel by train to the popular resort. ♦ * • Mr. Arthur Rosser, union secretary, is at present in Wellington presenting the case for the musicians before the Conciliation Council. He will return to Auckland on Saturday. The Auckland Power Board has contributed £3 3s toward Uie fund of the Auckland and Suburban Local Bodies’ Labourers’ Union for the annual picnic, which is to be held on February 25. The board’s employees preferred to repeat their practice of last year, and hold a picnic independent of the union. * * * “Nothing Doing” ‘•Nothing doing” is the popular cry among the unions this week. This, too, is the greeting which is tendered the many men who turn up daily in search of work. Things are not much brighter, and most 6f the workers’ organisations have waiting lists which they cannot reduce. Fears are entertained that as soon as the present peak season is finished in several of the industries the market will assume an even more serious complexion. Secretaries are doing their best to have the men placed, however, and jobs are snapped up as soon as they become vacant. * * * Tramwaymen Waiting Micawber-like, the members of the Tramwaymen’s Union are waiting to see what will turn up when the Auckland Transport Commission commences its investigations on the transport system of the city. The deliberations of the commission must have at least an indirect, and probably a very direct, bearing on the conditions of the men, and the omnibus drivers particularly. Little is being heard of this commission, however, and nothing is being said about the probable date of its sessions. * * * Gasworkers’ Dispute No settlement of the gasworkers’ dispute has been reached, but a special meeting of the union is to be held next week to consider the progress made during the five meetings of the Labour Disputes Committee into the wages and conditions of the men. The committee meets again on February 10, when the proposals of the union will be reviewed and placed before the arbitrators for consideration. This dispute has been hanging over the heads of the union and the company for some months, and the sixth meeting of the committee on the situation might produce a concrete result. Breach Alleged Officials in the Bakers’ Union are annoyed at the persistence of Walter Buchanan. Ltd., in working the bakers before midnight on certain holidays, and a case was brought against the firm in the Magistrate’s Court last week. In July of last year the Arbitration Court heard a complaint by the union against this firm, because bakers were worked at 7.30 on the evening of the King’s Birthday, whereas the award says that on statutory holidays, specified in the agreement, the baking of bread shall be prohibited. The court has interpreted a day to bo from midnight to midnight, and in this case it ruled against the firm. The magistrate, Mr. K. C. Outten, last week dismissed the charge against Buchanan, Ltd., however, and the union has lodged the necessary fee for an appeal to bo made to the Arbitration Court. “Members of the union feel very strongly on this question,” said

- .. .. .. Typographers Saddlers Cancelled Gas Employees Executive of Alliance of Labour and Boilermakers. the secretary, Mr.f E. J. Watson, ‘ because they have to be specified days upon which the baking of bread is prohibited, and in view of the court’s previous ruling they feel justified in going on with it.” Women Overlooked It is only now—six months too late —that some of the authorities concerned are fully appreciating what was done to the Shops and Offices Act during last session of Parliament. The manner in which the Minister’s proposals were chopped about in committee of the House indfcaied that the department’s idea of the amendments did not meet with general approval, but with all the alterations effected in the Bill, the position of the female assistant under the Act still appears to have been overlooked. Section 40 of the original Shops and Office Act says: “No female assistant shall be employed in or about a restaurant, or the business of -a restaurant, after the hour of 10.30 in the evening of any day.” The amended Act passed last session, and which comes into operation on February 1, contains the following significant clause: “Nothing in section 40 of the principal Act shall apply to any female assistant over the age of 21 years employed in connection* with any dance, banquet, or other social function, or the supplying of refreshments to patrons in any public dance hall, if provision to the satisfaction of the inspector is made for the conveyance to her home of such assistant on the completion of her work.” What happens, then, if trie; proprietor of a dance hall keeps his female employees till four o’clock in the morning, and then sends them home in a taxi? What can the department do to safeguard the Women employees