THE FREEZING INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 November 1921, Page 5

THE FREEZING INDUSTRY.

NEW AWARD ISSUED. Ol BONUSES, By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. The award of the Arbitration Court in the freezing workers’ dispute has been filed. A memorandum! attached to the award sums up the court’s decision in respect to wages, and indicates the 'basis on which several matters in dispute were settled. It is as follows:'— “The matters left to the decision of the court were unusually numerous, and in many cases were of a complicated and technical nature. In dealing with the technical clauses we. received very valuable assistance from Sir Francis j Boys and Mr. Cederwell (whose place was afterwards taken by Mr. Shea), who were nominated by the employers as experts, and Mr. Sill and Mr. Niall, who were similarly nominated by the workers. The question of wages has received our careful attention. In the main we have adopted the scale of rates out in the. awards and agreements of 1919, but have made minor changes in order to remove anomalies. By an agreement between the parties in December, 1920, a bonus of 20 per cent, was added to piece-workers’ rates, and a bonus of 25 per cent, to time workers’ rates. These were in excess of the bonuses granted by the court, ana «-e were satisfied that in view of the altered conditions and the low prices ruling for meat on the London market and the urgent necessity for freezing companies to rpduce their charges to farmers, the bonus additions required revision. “We have therefore followed the 1919 ibasic rates, but have reduced the bonuses to 12% and 15 per cent, respectively. This places workers in the freezing industry on the same footing in comparison to other workers as existed in 1912-14, when freezing workers secured certain advantages which they still retain under this award, and their purchasing is at least equal to what it was last season. We have incorporated provisions o-f the easing workers’ awards and agreements in this award, so as to have one uniform set of awards for the whole industry. We have recast a number of clauses of the 1919 awards and agreements, in connection with pvhich there were matters left in doubt. Our procedure has been to take the 1919 awards and agreements as a guide, and to supplement their provisions where it has been necQSsary to do so, and to make amendments where it was shown that anomalies existed, with the object of ensuring that the award should be clear and definite in its terms, and should cover, as far as possible to forsee, all matters that might otherwise become subjects of difference between the parties. / “Though separate awards have been prepared for the different industrial districts, they are identical in their wording, and we have indicated in subclauses, under appropriate headings, any matters in respect of which diiYe.ent rates or conditions are prescribed for different districts. This, we hope, will render the awards convenient for reference, and will save an employer having businesses in more than one district, or. a worker removing from one district to another, from the trouble of having to compare differing local awards. It is necessary that two members of the coqrt shall concur before u decision can be given. In the preparation of this award some of the clauses represented the decision of a. majority’, sometimes nn one side andi sometimes on the other, but the award as a whole has been adopted by all three members as a reasonable settlement of a. very difficult series of problems, and is accordingly concurred in by us all.”