ARBITRATION COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 244, 15 October 1925, Page 9

ARBITRATION COURT.

PROPORTION OF APPRENTICES. COURT MAKES ORDERS. .. Several reserved decisions by the i Court in matters affecting the number of apprentices employed in various trades, and respecting which the proportion of apprentices to journeymen was referred to the court were delivered to-day. In the application made by the Auckland Electrical Workers' Union to have the proportion of apprentices to journeymen reduced from one to one to one to three, the court expressed the opinion that by the time the present apprentices had completed their training the number of journeymen would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the trade and that for the future a proportion of one to two would be sufficient. In another application, made by the Furniture Trades' Union, the court hss fixed the number of apprentices in any branch of the trade as not more than one to two. In the engineering trade the court has fixed the proportion of apprentices to journeymen at not more than one to one for engineers, and not more than one to two for boiler makers and moulders. The proportion of the total number of apprentices to the total number of journeymen employed by any employer to be: Engineers, not more than two to one, and boilermakerg and moulders, one to two or fraction of two. In a memorandum the court mentioned that it had amended the district proportion of apprentices to journeymen to read one to one instead of two to one. The evidence satisfied the court that the conditions that justified the court, some years, ago, in fixing the higher proportion, no longer exist. In the application by the Apprenticeship Committee for interpretation of the Northern Industrial District Plumpers' and G-asfitters' Apprenticeship Order, of September, 1924, the court found that, in the case of a lad continuing an apprenticeship commenced elsewhere, the Registrar was justified in registering the contract of apprenticeship; but that, after this was done, the apprentice should then be counted in computing the district proportion. The employer? applied to the court to amend the district proportion of apprentices from one to three to one to one; but the majority of the Apprenticeship Committee recommended that no change be made: and the court was of opinion that a proportion of one to two was sufficient to maintain the position that existed before the order was made. The matter has been amended »ccordingly.