DAIRY EMPLOYEES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 306, 20 May 1911, Page 7

DAIRY EMPLOYEES

THE TAKAXAKi OASE. | AN IMPORTANT MANIFESTO. To the Hditor. ' Sir, —The following letter has been ior- . warded by the Taranaki Dairy Factories ! Employees' Union to the secretary of the | Taranaki Dairying and Farming Union of Employers, in reply to a communica- ! tion from the latter body conveying their decision not to meet representatives of | the Workers' Union in conference for the ; purpose of endeavoring to arrive at an I amicable settlement of matters in dis- ' pute, till such time as the Workers' j Union had registered itself under the Arbitration Act: May 15, 1911. To Mr. T. Harry I'enn, Secretary Taranaki Dairying and Farming Industries Union of Employers. Dear Sir—Yours of May 3 to hand conveying the decision of the meeting held at .Stratford on that date. We think it is greatly to be regretted that your Union in coming to this decision should, have allowed itself to be guided as in the past by an outside organisation, i.e., the New Zealand Employers' Federation. We have always held that it was owing to your Union being dominated by that body in October, 1009, that the very unsatisfactory conditions at pre,sent existing in the industry are in vogue. In again handing over the conduct of the dispute to the Federation, and refusing to meet us in friendly conference, we are reluctantly compelled to the conclusion that your Union is not desirous of arriving at an amicable understanding in regard to the matters in dispute, but is bent instead on crushing our organisation out of existence. Against such tactics we are compelled to adopt measures, which may seem drastic, in order to defend ourselves. In the meantime we wish to point out to you that any disturbance that may take place in the industry will be entirely due to your Union's refusal to accept the proposal for a conference made by our Union I remain, yours faithfully, JNO. ROBERTSON, Secretary. For the benefit of your readers and the public generally we ask the courtesy of your columns to put our position as clearly as we can before them: The Taranaki Dairy Factory Employees' Industrial Union of Workers was | formed at a representative meeting of | factory employees held at Eltham on 20t.1i November, 1010. It was formed for the purpose of endeavoring to secure better labor conditions for the workers in the butter and cheese factories of Ta- | ranaki. It was decided then that the Union would not register itself under the Arbitration Act. This decision was arrived at (and subsequently confirmed at other meetings) after careful consideration and the fullest discussion. The reason for taking this course was as follows: The award at present in force is based on one made by the Arbitration Court in the case of the Wellington Province dairy factories; its two main provisions are a 70-hour week of seven days, with wages varying from 37s Od per week for ordinary hands to 50s per week for first assistants, and in certain specified cases 55s per week for the latter. This award i came into force in October, 1909, and gives a lower scale of remuneration than prevailed previously. The Workers' Union that was represented at the Conciliation Conference when this award was made was a weak organisation, and advantage was taken of this weakness by the representative of the Employers' Federation to enforce acceptance of the Wellington award on the Union. Since the award has been in force wages have decreased, and consequently there is ] more dissatisfaction in the industry at the present time than at any previous time in its history. Our reasons then for refusing to register under the Arbitration Act are as follow: The Arbitration Court when asked to make an award in any particular industry invariably takes the existing award as a basis for the new one it is proposed to make; we hold that no award will be satisfactory which is based on the existing one. By registering the Union under tlie Aroitratkm Act the employers can compel us to go to tlie court, which is equivalent | to forcing an unsatisfactory award upon the industry. 'ln this aspect of the matter we have the experience of the Wellington Dairy Factory Workers' Union to guide us. This Union went to the Arbitration Court on September 30th last year to point out that the Court in drawing up the 1908 award had been misled by certain evidence put before it, and consequently had blundered. The President of the Court simply refused to list|m to it. and, while practically ad- j mitling that the Court had blundered, vet, refused to depart from the basis of the' aivard previously made, which was admittedly an employers' award. The Taranaki Union is now in the position j thatHhe Wellington Union was in then,] ami .h:is no reason to expect any different treatment. Our position, then, is j that, bv registering t nnder the Act) and then entering into conference with the employers, we simply put ourselves into tlie position of having to accept the i Wellington award if offered to us. and! that it and nothing but it shall be offer- 1 ed in is without doubt the policy of the Employers' Federation. A conference under such conditions would, to our minds, be simply a farce, and in asking us to agree to register before meeting them, the employers know that in effect they are saying to us, "Yes, we will meet von in conference as you have requested, but you must first of all agree to accept the Wellington award." The award which they thus wish lis to accept I provides a. wage for cheese factories which works out at from 7 'l-.itli pence per hour to 8 4-7 th pence (this last for first assistants only). The hours are 70 I per week of 7 days. To obtain some improvement on those conditions we have formed our Union. We believe that when the general public get to know the labor conditions prevailing in this most prosperous of all our industries their sympathy will be with us. It is surely time in this so-called "Workers' Paradise" that men did not require to ■work seven days a week for a bare living.—Yours. etc.. ,T. ROBERTSON, Secretary. Taranaki Dairy Factory Employees' Union.