NOT AN AWARD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 209, 16 June 1933, Page 6

NOT AN AWARD.

TAILORESSES’ AGREEMENT.

ARBITRATION COURT DECISION

(Per Pi ess Association)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

In a reserved judgment tire Arbitration Court refused an application to declare as an award an industrial agreement between the Christchurch Tailoresses, Pressers and Cutters’ Union and the employers. The refusal was made because there is an award in existence binding on certain employers not parties to the industrial agreement and that agreement could not supercede the award until the latter was cancelled.

The Judge said that a special point the Court had to consider was a novel one. The term of the Canterbury shirt, white and silk workers’ award bad expired but continued in force until a new award or industrial agreement was made. No dispute bad arisen since its expiry and no application to the Conciliation Commissioner had ’been made. The Union of Workers and a number of employers who were parties to the award bad entered into an agreement, under section 28, for the prevention, as distinguished from the settlement, of an industrial dispute and those employers who were objecting to the present application were not parties to the agreement. Could such an agreement supercede an award of the Court so completely as to have the effect of cancelling it in toto? It was noteworthy that the Act made careful provision for safeguarding the parties to an industrial agreement from any interference with their rights thereunder by any subsequent industrial agreement entered into by only some of their number. The original industrial agreement remained in force insofar as parties who did not execute the subsequent agreement were concerned.