CONCILIATION COUNCIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 May 1920, Page 5

CONCILIATION COUNCIL.

THE TYPOGRAPHICAL DISPUTE!. DEADLOCK OVER THE BONUS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The Conciliation Council wns occupied to-day hearing the New Zealand Typographical Federation's dispute. The Commissioner remarked ftt the outset that though the dispute was originally filed as a Dominion one it was now being proceeded with as a local dispute. On behalf of the employees, Mr. Chapman said it was hoped that any settlement arrived at would become a settlement for the whole Dominion. The parties in Wellington had met on four occasions during the last three months, and an agreement was arrived at in the matter of wages for hand compositors only- The difference of opinion still existing in regard to the terms of the award was on the' question of the cost of living bonus. The men had demanded £0 per week, exclusive of bonus, and had been grafted £'>. They now proposed to go to the Arbitration Court, for the 6s bonus it had recently awarded.

In opening the case for the employers, Mr. Pirani said hj regretted that an act of grace on the part of the employers had been construed by the employees into a capitulation, when such a thing was never intended. The employers could not look at the demand for £-5, plus a cost of living bonus of fig. Every employer in the trade in New Zealand had repudiated everything above £3, inclusive of bonus. The limit the employers were prepared to concede was an additional Is 3d, bringing the total minimum v.'age to ,t.i Is 3d, the same figures as conceded to machinists. The deliberations were continued all day without agreement, the hearing being adjourned till the 25th inst.