OCEAN V. ROAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 646, 24 April 1929, Page 1

OCEAN V. ROAD

STEAMER TRAFFIC DYING COOKS’ AND STEWARDS’ PAY Road and rail competition during the past two years have been responsible for a rapid decline in the coastal passenger service of the Northern Steamship Company, requiring nine vessels to be laid up and putting 31 cooks and stewards out of employment. This was pleaded by the company yesterday at the Arbitration Court in defence of a claim for increased wages and easier working conditions, made on behalf of the cooks and stewards. Mr. U. Kennedy, for the union, asked for a general increase in wages on the lines of the Union Steam Ship Company’s award. Some representative rates claimed were the following, the award wages being given in parentheses: Second stewards, £l7 5s a month (£ls 14s and £l4 14s); saloon waiters and bedroom stewards, £l6 5s (£l3 14s); chief cooks, £22 15s, £2l 15s and £2O 15s (£lB 9s, £l7 9s and £ls 9s); second cooks, £lB 15s, £l7 15s and £l6 15s (£l4 9s). The union also asked for an eighthour day to be worked between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. at sea and at intermediate ports, all work performed otherwise to be paid for at overtime rates. The company asked that the present award should be continued with a few minor alterations. Captain R. C. Hammond, manager of the Northern Steamship Company, described the decrease in the company’s passenger business on account of railway extensions in North Auckland and the Bay of Plenty, and the growth of motor services in all parts of the province. The competition could not be met on fair lines. The company had already laid off many vessels and could not afford any increase in wages. The court reserved its decision. Two other applications for cooks and stewards employed on the Kaipara and Sellars-Allen Shipping Co.’s steamers, and on auxiliary and small cargo steamers trading out of Auckland and Onehunga were also heard, decision being reserved on these, as also on an application to bring the trawlers of Sanford, Limited, under the award.