APPEAL FAILS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 299, 18 December 1935, Page 8

APPEAL FAILS.

WATERSIDE UNION. REGISTRAR IS UPHELD. REGISTRATION REFUSED. The Arbitration Court lias upheld the refusal' of the registrar to register the Auckland Dock and Wharf Workers' Society as an industrial union. The judgment of the Court states, inter alia:— The question of fixing some reasonable limit to the number of men competing for work on the waterfront lias exercised the minds of Arbitration Courts bptli in this country and in other conntries for many years. Experience in this country showed that, particularly in times of depression, the waterfront became a Mecca for the unemployed of all trades. The regular waterside workers —the men who follow waterside work, as their regular calling—having thus to share the available work with this large number of unemployed frotn other trades, found themselves unable to earn a living wage. To meet this difficulty the Arbitration Court was pressed to increase wages, and this in turn attracted still more unemployed and casually employed men from other trades and so accentuated the trouble. In its award of December, 1924, the Court gave preference to members of the existing unions, but at the same time made provision for the limiting of the membership of the respective .unions to such numbers as should be sufficient to carry on the work of the port or ports concerned. This policy was continued under a different judge in the award of October, 1929, and again in March, 1935, when preference was granted to members of the existing unions so long as the membership of any stieh uiiion was not less or more by 5 per cent than the normal labour requirements of the port concerned. , . Drifted to Waterfront. The judgment says that most of the eight men .who gave evidence for the society" 1 "appear to be men who have drifted, .to. the waterfront when their normal occupations have failed them. None of them appear to ha'Ve followed waterside work as . their, regular or normal calling. None of them are at present earning a living on the waterfront, though they get occasional jobs there. Even, therefore, in respect of these eight men the evidence in our opinion falls short of establishing that they are workers engaged in this industry within the meaning of section 5. "As to the other 70 men said to belong to the society, no evidence whatever has been tendered as to their circumstances or as to. whether they have any real or substantial connection with the waterside workers' industry. In our opinion, therefore, the appellant society has failed' to establish that its members are workers in this industry within the meaning of section 5 of the Act, and for that reason the society is, we think, not entitled to registration."