UNION MEMBERSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 10

UNION MEMBERSHIP.

IS LIMITATION LEGAL? COURT AWARD CHALLENGED. WATERSIDER CLAIMS £50. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A legal action of interest to the whole of New Zealand was heard in the Supreme Court to-day by Mr. Justice Adams. It involved the question of whether an industrial union may legally limit ite membership to a fixed number, and it applies particularly to waterside workers, at main ports. The limitation in dispute is authorised by an award of the Arbitration Court.

Edward Gillard, a "uutorsido worker at Lyttelton, sued the committee. of management of the Lyttelton Waterside Workers' Union for £50 damages for loss of work during the past year. He asked for an order that the committee should admit him as a member of the union and accept the fees tendered by him. In his statement of claim he said: "Defendants have without just cause excluded plaintiff from obtaining tho privileged status conferred by men" bership of the said union, and which status plaintiff is entitled by law to acquire, and plaintiff has been victimised by defendants, deprived of work and caused much damage by defendants' determination to prevent him from acquiring the said status." Tho defence was that Gillard'did not, rnako proper application for membersnip by applying to the secretary and tendering his subscription. (Proceeding.)