THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S STRIKE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8381, 15 March 1907, Page 5

THE SLAUGHTERMEN'S STRIKE.

By Telegraph—Press Association.

AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT.

CHRISTCHURCH, March 14,

There was an unexpected development in the freezing works trouble to-day. The companies have, from the first, stood by the law as embodied in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and have demanded that the dispute should be referred for settlement to the Arbitration Court, i The men have' replied that they will under no circumstances have anything to do with the Court, and that any settlement must be by means of an industrial agreement between the parties. To-day the freezing companies took the initiative, and filed with the Clerk of Awards in Chrii-st-i church an application for a hearing of the dispute at the next sitting of the Arbitraticn Court in Christ- ! church. The Union will be cited to appear in accordance with the ordinary procedure of the Court. This is understood to be the first occasion in the history of compulsory arbitration in New Zealand in which the employers have applied for an award and have cited the workers to appear. The position at the Christchurch Meat Company's various factories is understood to be improving daily. At Islington there have been about thirty men at work for the last day or two, and the proportion of men able to slaughter for export is gradually increasing. At Picton, where operations have been suspended for the last ten days, work has again started, and fully 300 a day is expected to be put through for the balance of this week. At Smithfield there are about twenty men at work, of whom about one-half are killing for export. Applications for work for suitable men are coming in more freely, and there is every prospect that by the 1 beginning of next week a fair quantity will be treated for export at all the works. A meeting of the Slaughtermen's Union was held to-night, as the result of which the following telegram was sent to the Hon. W. Hall-Jones, Acting-Premier, by Messrs T. H. Davey and Geo. Witty, M's.H.R., who were present at the' meeting:—■ "At a large pieeting of members of the Slaughtermen's Union, to-night, at Which the men were present, a resolution was carried unanimously that, the members of the Union and ourselves, should be vested with full powers to arbitrate with the directors of the freezing companies, any • question in dispute to be decided by the Arbitration Court. In view of this decision and the probable amicable settlement of the dispute, would you be good enough to give the men fined every possible chance to pay as best they can. It would be a pity to see any of them imprisoned. The cases are to be heard to-morrow. Do your best." The freezing companies will consider this new phase of the question at a special meeting to be held tomorrow. INVERCARGILL, March 14. There ai'e no new strike develop- . ments to report. In fact strike is an obsolescent term in Southland. Mr McQueen, manager of ' the Southland Meat Company, < dealing w,ith this phase of the matter in an interview, to-day, said that the companies recognised no strike. The men went out, negotiations ended, an d the men are now simply in a position of employees who left the service and with whom the company have nothing to do. Individually old hands applying for employment would be treated on their merits, but as a body of strikers the company do not recognise them, and no person claiming to represent them as such will be received.