FREEZING WORKERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 277, 13 February 1928, Page 11

FREEZING WORKERS

NEW AWARD MADE - '< WAGES SCALE ASSESSED A new award governing the conditions of the Auckland abattoir assistants and freezing works employees lias just been issued by the Arbitration Court. The award, which is to operate from February 27 of this year to February 28, 1929, was contested mainly on the question of wages, and as the judge, Mr. Justice Frazer remarked, “the matter of the export trade had to be considered, and the whole question has given the court considerable difficulty.” In an explanation of the court’s decision, the judge points out that the principal matter referred to the court was that of the rates of wages. “The court has not increased the rates for cattle and pigs,” he says, “but has revised the rates for sheep and lambs. It was generally agreed by witnesses at the hearing that the difference in the rates for longslianking and short-shanking sheep and lambs should be ,5s a hundred, but the rate lixed by the former award was based on longshanking. without any provision for short-shanking. “The current freezing works award provides rates for sheep and lambs (short-shanked) of 40s arid 37s 65 respectively a hundred. As the rate under this award is the same for sheep and lambs, it was decided to fix a basic rate half-way between 37a $• and 40s, and to add 5s a hundred for long-shanking. “The members of the court were not in complete agreement in regard to the schedule of rates to be fixed, but decided to accept the rates set out in the award, without recording individual expressions of opinion.”