ARBITRATION ACT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 236, 2 October 1908, Page 6

ARBITRATION ACT.

DOMESTIC SERVANTS' UNIONS. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.? WELLINGTON, Thursday. Interviewed this evening regarding the statements made at the meeting of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council last night, to the effect that he had unnecessarily inserted a clause in the Arbitration Bill whereby domestic servants were excluded from "its provisions, the Hon. J. A. Millar said that the position was evidently misunderstood, and that the explanation was simple. There was nothing to prevent domestic servants forming a union if they so desirsd under the provisions of the Act, the oniy thing •was that there could be no breach of award where it could be proved that the domestics were not employed for direct pecuniary gain or prorit. But where domestic servants went to en hotel or boarding-house, and did work for gain, those servants got the full benefits of the award. Referring to the position as it applied to farm labourers (which phase of the bill was also the subject of dissention amongst the members of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council), the Minister explained that the position was equally simple. There was nothing to prevent the farm labourers from formin" a union. Likewise there was nothing to: prevent them seeking an award; because they had failed once that was not to say that they would fail again. There was absolutely nothing in the bill to prevent them or any other body of workers from forming a. unton. The bill aimed at a simplification of industrial matters, and he was confident that it -would, succeed.