BLIND BASKET-MAKERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 339, 26 April 1928, Page 16

BLIND BASKET-MAKERS

ACCUSED OF PRICECUTTING COURT URGES CONFERENCE Allegations that baskets manufactured at the Jubilee Institute for the Blind were being sold at cut prices to the detriment of the trade were, the basis of an application by employers and employees at the Arbitration Court yesterday that the institute should be joined as a party to the Rattan and Wickerworkers’ Award. Stating the case for the manufacturers, Mr. S. E. Wright said that; the institute, had a commercial traveller on the road and was going in for wickerworking in . commercial lines. Returned soldiers and others employed by the manufacturers were feeling the effect of unfair competition. Mr. Wright confessed that, as far as he could see, bringing the institute under the award would do little good except to bring things to a head. Evidence was given in support of Mr. Wright’s statementsMr. Clutha Mackenzie, director of the institute, reminded the court that a similar application was before it in October, 1926, when it was suggested that an understanding be arrived at by means of a conference between the representatives of the institute and the parties to the award. Although he had endeavoured to arrange the conference only live of the 16 parties to the award had responded. The peculiar conditions attending work at the institute made the award unsuitable for its workers.

After consideration the court announced that the application would be adjourned until the next sitting in Auckland in three months’ time. Mr. Justice Frazer suggested that the conference Mr. Mackenzie had endeavoured to arrange should be held within the three months, when some arrangement might be made. He considered that much of the depression in the trade was due to the activities of private wickerworkers who were affecting the institute as well as the local manufacturers.

His Honour failed to understand why the manufacturers had again brought the application without arranging the conference the court had suggested 18 months ago.