TROUBLE AVOIDED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 247, 8 March 1913, Page 4

TROUBLE AVOIDED.

The agreement reached between the engineers and the Union Steam Ship Company will be hailed with satisfaction throughout the Dominion. Had the negotiations failed, the whole of the company's fleet, which must do nine-tenths of the -sea-borne trade i>{ New Zealand, would have been laid up. This would speedily have dislocated the country's trade and caused untold inconvenience and loss. Strikes arc hard to justify in the colonies, where ..hick is as good as his master—and often a good Zeal better—and where machinery exists for ' the remedying of grievances and rcctifyi ing of wrongs, but in this case the [Union Company, by the procrastinating policy it adopted towards a body of men who had always loyally stood by the company in times of past trouble, and were deserving of the best treatment, seems to have precipitated the crisis. The chief point of difference was on the question of overtime. The engineers asked for the same rates of pay as had been awarded by the Federal Arbitration Court to the Australian branches of the Institute of Marine Engineers, and also for the same conditions as to hours of work and overtime rates. The Federal Court gave the engineers an eight hours' day, with extra payment per hour for all time worked in excess of this. The company all along has been prepared to give engineers the Australian rate of wages, but would not consent to pay more than £2 for overtime in any one month. At the conference the Prime Minister, who as mediator seems to have rendered a valuable service to the country, considered the men's demand for full payment of overtime a reasonable one, and the company's acceptance brought the crisis to an end. The men's demand undoubtedly was fair. It has been shown that the engineers have often to work as many as 100 hours overtime in one month, and £2, the company's offer, was manifestly inadequate. One engineer, it has been proved, worked something like 13!) hours overtime in one month. The company can afford to treat their best servants fairly and liberally. It long ago conceded an eight hours' day to members of the crew, and from the position revealed by the telegrams the other week the Company's finances have not been seriously disturbed by the concession, nor will they be by improving the conditions of the engineers. After all, it is not the company that pays. It is the public all the time, and the public' will not complain very loudly if a small section of hard-working men like the engineers are put on the same footing as workers in less strenuous ami more congenial avocations.