DECISION RESERVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 15

DECISION RESERVED.

FERTILISER WORKERS.

ARBITRATION COURT HEARING.

Decision was reserved by his Honor Mr. Justice O'Regan at the conclusion of the hearing of the application by chemical manure workers for a new award, which was continued in the Arbitration Court oil Thursday. Associated with his Honor were Messrs. W. Cecil Prime and A. L. Monteith.

The application was made by the Otaliuhu Chemical Manure Workers' Union, represented by Mr. W. Miller, the respondents being the Challenge Phosphate Co., Ltd., Kempthorne Prosser and Co. (New Zealand Drug Co., Ltd.), and the New Zealand Farmers' Fertiliser Co., Ltd. The employers' representative was Mr. W. E. Anderson.

On Wednesday the Court inspected the works at West field and yesterday was devoted to a hearing of the case, the morning and part of the afternoon being given up to the submission of evidence by witnesses for the union.

For the cited companies, Mr. W. E. Anderson argued that the employers, in Conciliation Council, had offered the union increases along the lines of the Court's previous pronouncements. The first, given during last September, was in reference to casual employees, and the second, in December, dealt with weekly workers.

As far as holidays were concerned, the Court had made the position clear in successive awards, and the employers' offer had been framed along those lines. In this connection there had been nothing in the policy indicated by the Court to indicate that the men engaged in this particular work had any special right to holidays on pay, and the offer had been framed with that point in view.

In his opinion, said Mr. Anderson, on the basis of what the employers had put forward, there was no valid reason why the case should not have been settled in consiliation.

Mr. Anderson then called witnesses to support his contentions. The hearing concluded at 5.30 p.m., his Honor stating that the Court's decision would be reserved.