WORK AND WAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 212, 7 March 1914, Page 3

WORK AND WAGES.

FURNITURE TRADES APPEAL. i A QUESTION OF APPRENTICES. By Telegraph—Press Association. | Wellington, Friday, i At the Arbitration Court the Wellington Furniture Trade. Union appealed against the decision of Mr. J. S. S. Evans, S.M., in dismisitig the easo against the Scoullar Co., Ltd., in which appeallants alleged that the company had employed more than the number of apprentices it was entitled to. The ap- ; peal was made upon a point of law. Appellants contended that the judgment was wrong in law, inasmuch as the Magistrate wrongly held that under the industrial award applicable to the case, the defendant company, in calculating the lumber of apprentices which it was entitled to employ in the upholstering branch of its business, could take into account and lump together the number of all journeymen employed by it ■ in different departments of the upholstering branch of its business. The Court reserved its decision. UNION OFFICIAL RESIGN. Auckland, Thursday. Regarding a vote of censure and the recent resolutions passed by meetings of the Auckland Tramways Union, the management committee of the Union has resigned in a body, leaving only the ' secretary, who is a paid official, in office. The original factor in leading to this decision was the refusal of a member to pay a line imposed by the ; executive, on the ground that he had , not been given an opportunity' to ex-' plain his side of the ease before the executive reached its decision. THE PLUMBERS' DISPUTE. ! Wellington. Yesterday. The hearing of the plumbers' dispute, in which the men applied for a Dominion award, was continued in the Arbitration Court. Called on bohalf of the employers, Collins A. Peace, master plumber of Auckland, urged that it was imperative that plumbers should be classified, because they were classified under the. Plumbers' Registration Act, and at prosent there were two distinct classes' of wrkcrs in Auckland at two distinct minimum wages. Alexander Burt, .junr., member of the firm of A. and T. Burt, said of the firm's fifteen plumbers in Auckland eleven received above the minimum wage; two had received considerably in excess for some considerable time. The firm never regarded the minimum wage as the (maximum. He advanced,' (that as a reason why the minimum should be not too high. If the court granted tlw Is <Jd all round demanded he did not think he could raise wages proportionately for those receiving any more than the minimum. Between 50 and fiO ner cent, of the plumbers in Auckland received more than the minimum. None of the firm's hands in Auckland lost lime through slackness. Tn Dmiedin. he had men of 28 years' continuous service. In Wellington the firm paid twe men more than the minimum. All his iboyst attended the Technical College, Auckland. He opposed the leading-hand clause demanded, as the majority of the masters in New Zealand were work-in" .nasters and supervised their own jobs. He much preferred: the colonial plumber to the Enelish plumber. Colonials were better allround men.