Fiji's Industrial Unrest Is Close
pp. 63-65 · Read in the full issue
Board Will Inquire Into Sugar Industry
To Explosion Point
® With the virtual certainty of a strike by the sugar mill workers, railway hands, and others associated with the Fiji Sugar Industry Employees’ Association looming as the new season approaches—the first mills were to commence crushing on May 26—the announce ment hy the Governor of the appointment of a hoard of inquiry has probably been welcomed in all quarters. This development came after J. P. Shortall’s article, above, was written.
It certainly must have been welcomed by Mr. B. D. Lakshman, general president of the Association.
THE Governor’s announcement came at a meeting between himself and Association representatives on April 23 and the terms of reference read as follows; “To inquire into the causes and circumstances of a dispute which is apprehended between the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited and the Fiji Sugar Industry Employees’
Association and to make recomfnr tbp maintenance of
rJS* in X sugar-mill-
Industrial peace in the sugar mm i^able a and\xD^lenced e chalrman WP m the United Kingdom” obtamable m the United £^ n ao ™ —Mr. ?‘-R G 'TT?°a e “ton-ranking in- MA, P ma de a dustna! ar^^to^ to w^ e suSr insimilar inquiry into t g dustry in *s* ?h?'board will v.p°T^r O V m^ b ßhind f i l Mr b D M. N. be Mr. P. K. Bhinai, jvl: r MacFarlane, and Ratu K. K .
Mara, all leading figures in j P The appointment of this board follows the breakdown Of annual
negotiations between employees and employer last March The Union de manded a substantial increase in the basic rate to 3/- per hour and a 40-hour week. This was rejected by the employers who were not pre pared to look into the Association’s Jasons for claiming this increase.
'Hiey instead suggested going to the A^?;ra^ lon 9 01 f rt - . . ... .
The Association rejected that on the grounds that there was no basis in official statistics under which the Court couM a( . present decide a fair thT Association’s president, B. D. Lakshman, sees it, the question now is not can the sugar industry afford to pay, so much as what is the minimum wage on which work ers can be expected to live decently, The board now appointed appar ently will be able to consider this angle when it goes into session soon after the chairman arrives from the Unite d Kingdom on May 22 presumably the association will agree not to stop work while the
(Continued on page 63)
d is in active session and mak ts investigations. For this there be general relief throughout sugar areas where few can d a strike at this stage of the »n.
PWD Workers' Dispute
labour dispute is also taking i between the Public Works De nent Workers’ Union and the c Works Department, which said off over 700 men in recent ;hs. a big meeting of employees in oka, in April, the Union de to give notice to the employer if such discharges did not by the end of April the re ing employees would come out ;rike. makers at the Sigatoka meet onceded that substantially less > were available to the PWD pear than last, but the general tary, Mr. M. Ramzan, said linly we are not responsible jetting the country into this :ion, though it seems that we he ones who are expected to • the consequences. Our work iust eat and human needs can ie postponed”.
Fiji Industrial Workers’ Con deputation also saw the Gov early in April to discuss un jyment and the acute financial Aon. The President, Mr. C. P. i, on behalf of the Congress, tied to the Governor to set up >our exchange, an unemploy benefit scheme, the establish of long-term development and a system or social security 5 Colony. ; Congress also sought the iishment of a wages council to fair wage for non-union work
the compulsory payment of
i on statutory public holidays, crease of annual holidays from ) 14 days, and the establish of a 40-hour week. ;se meetings and disputes were itive of the present industrial te throughout Fiji and of the al recession at present pre g.