1326
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 31

Northern District (except Poverty Bay) Coachworkers.—Recommendation of Conciliation Council.

WHEREAS an industrial dispute has arisen between the Auckland Coachworkers’ Industrial Union of Workers and the Auckland Provincial Coachbuilders’ and Wheelwrights’ Industrial Union of Employers, and Acme Coachbuilding Company, Hamilton, and others: the following are the recommendations of the Council of Conciliation:—

Hours of Work.

1. A week’s work shall not exceed forty-seven hours.
2. (a.) The recognized hours of work shall be from 7.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on every week-day except Saturday. One hour to be allowed each day except Saturday for dinner. On Saturday the hours of work shall be from 7.30 a.m. to noon.
   (b.) During winter months the dinner-hour may be curtailed as may be mutually agreed upon between individual employers and their workers.

Classification of Labour.

3. Five classes of labour shall be recognized—viz., competent journeymen, journeymen unable to earn the minimum wage, improvers, apprentices, and helpers.

Wages.

4. Wages shall be paid on an hourly basis.
5. The wages for competent journeymen coachworkers shall be not less than 1s. 4½d. per hour.

Improvers.

6. Apprentices having completed their term of apprenticeship may be employed as improvers for two consecutive years immediately after the expiration of the period of their apprenticeship, either by the employers with whom they have been apprenticed, or by any other employer, at not less than 1s. per hour for the first twelve months, and 1s. 1½d. per hour for a further period of twelve months.

Apprentices.

7. The period of apprenticeship in any branch of the trade shall be five years, but six months’ probation shall be allowed the first employer of any apprentice, such six months to be included in the period of apprenticeship should the probationer be bound. Apprentices shall be bound by one or other of the modes hereafter mentioned:—
   (1.) By instrument in writing duly binding upon the parties; in the absence of which the parties shall be deemed to have entered into the following arrangement.
   (2.) By taking the apprentice hereunder without writing, subject to the following conditions,—
   (a.) Any employer taking an apprentice hereunder shall be deemed to undertake the duty which he agrees to perform as a duty enforceable under this award, and shall pay the apprentice the rate of wages herein provided.
   (b.) At the end of the period of apprenticeship the employer shall give the apprentice a certificate to show that he has served his apprenticeship. Should the employer at any time before the termination of the apprenticeship wish for any reason to dispense with the services of the apprentice he shall give him a certificate for the time served, and procure him another employer, carrying on business within a reasonable distance of the original employer’s place of business, who will continue to teach the apprentice, to pay him the wages prescribed by this award according to the total length of time he has served, and generally to perform the obligations of the original employer; provided it shall not be obligatory upon an employer to find the apprentice another employer if he shall so misconduct himself as to entitle the employer to discharge him, but he shall give him a certificate covering the time actually served.
   (c.) An employer shall not be deemed to discharge his duty towards his apprentice if he fails to keep him at work owing to slackness of work, but such slackness may form a proper ground for transferring him to a master willing to undertake the responsibility of teaching him.