WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 February 1921, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK. DIFFICULTIES AHEAD. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Feb. IL Others than the confirmed pessimist are predicting industrial difficulties in the near future. Many bodies of workers have received since the beginning of the war substantial increases in pay to balance, in some measure, at any rate, the increased cost of living and several of them are pressing at the present moment for still further increases. The employers generally, however, are taking the view that the prices of commodities that can be numbered among the necessaries of life have reached their maximum and that the tendency from this forward will be rather downward than upward. If this view is correct, and it appears to be supported by the official statistics, difference of opinion between the parties may follow as a very natural sequence THE COAL DISPUTE. The coal dispute, of course, does not involve the question of wages at present. The resumption, of normal work at the mines—thie condition insisted upon by the employers —has cleared the way for the meeting of the committee that is to adjudicate upon the alleged case of victimisation at Blackball, and it is hoped that an amicable settlement may be reached in the course of a week or sb, and that all fear of trouble in this industry may be removed for the time being. The seamen, too, have displayed their good common sense by accepting the bonus of 10s a month, offered by the owners instead of pressing for the £2 a month they demanded themselves. Their present agreement does not expire till February of next year, and by that time industrial affairs may have settled down. RESISTING A REDUCTION. The attitude of the carpenters, who have refused to accept a reduction of wages from 3s to 2s 9d an hour, is more bellicose. “Over 360 carpenters in Wellington are earning 3s an hour and they all have refused to accept any reduction,” one of the officials of the Carpenters’ Society said this morning. “Many of them are single men and these at any rate would go to where they could get still better pay rather than submit to a reduction. Carpenters are earning as much as 27s a day in Sydney at the present time and there is work enough there to keep them going for just as long as they want employment.” The carpenters’ demand for a forty hour week and a minimum wage of 3s an hour was discussed by the Conciliation Council to-day, but the men’s representatives showed no disposition to give way. THE SHEARERS’ DISPUTE. The dispute between the Wellington Shearers and Shed Hands’ Union, and the Sheepowners’ Union of Employers, was before the Conciliation Council yesterday with little prospect of an amicable settlement. The employers were anxious to get to the Arbitration Court as speedily as possible, but the representatives of the men simply scouted a suggestion to this effect “So far as we are concerned,” one of itfiem declared, “we will not go before the Court, and if there is to be an agreement we must have it direct from the employers.” This is the settled attitude of the men. They are prepared, they say, to make some concession on account of the altered conditions of the wool-growing industry, but they refuse positively to accept the rates offered by the employers or to allow the Court to decide between the parties. That is where the dispute stands to-day