SEAMEN’S WAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1922, Page 5

SEAMEN’S WAGES.

A REDUCTION URGED. AT ARBITRATION COURT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. In asking for a reduction in the wages of seamen, Mr. W. G. Smith, for the companies, drew attention to the fact that the demands of the men were made during the currency of the war, when every ship was urgently needed, and an acute shortage of labor existed. These were the only reasons why such excessively high rates of wages were given. In fact, high rates of pay were obtained from the employers by force majeure, and under duress, not because the latter considered the rates reasonable. Mr. Smith said the shipping industry was one in which the interests of thA general public, and particularly of the primary producers, must be considered by the court to greater extent, probably, than in any oQier industry for which thexcourt fixed the rates of wages and conditions of employment. The position of the primary producers had, no doubt,. been fully laid berore the court in other cases. The seriousness of the situation, which had arisen owing to a world-wide slump in the price of our primary products, was so widely known that any further comment at that juncture was unnecessary. It would, however, be apparent that anything that could be done in the direction of reducing trie charges on primary products should be effected in the interests of the community as a whole. That could not be done unless the working costs of ships, which were now about two and a third times higher than before the war, were reduced. Speaking as to the reduction in the efficiency of the work performed, as compared with the war period, the figures showed that, while wages had increased, efficiency had decreased. Mr. Smith referred to the “go-slow” policy, which, he said, was most pernicious ana attended by serious results, as it injured the public and the employers. ABUSE OF PREFERENCE CLAUSE. Mr. Smith asked the court to substitute a “no discrimination” clause for the present preference clause, one reason being that the preference clause had been greatly abused by the waterside unions, especially of late years. At the present time the Wellington union demanded payment in advance of the sum of 50s before a man was allowed to join the union, this apparently being made up of 5s entrance fee, 25s for a year’s subscription in advance, and 20s for levy. The demand for a levy was clearly improper under the terms of the existing preference clause, as a levy could not, in the ordinary acceptance of the term, be classed as a contribution. Mr. Smith urged the court to deprive the union of preference. Moderate men only belonged to the union because under the preference clause they had to. They did not attend the meetings, even “stop-work” ones. The control of the union thus passed into the hands of men of, to put it mildly, very advanced views, who ran the union for* the purpose of advancing their revolutionary theories, and made levies upon the members which they knew to be illegal. They enforced these payments by means of threats of exclusion from work, as had happened quite recently in connection with the Wellington union. After the address, evidence was called.