HOLIDAY PAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 7

HOLIDAY PAY

FIXING THE RATE

MAGISTRATE'S JUDGMENT

Once an employer fixes a weekly rate of pay to which a worker is entitled on completing a week's work in the normal number of ordinary working hours, that sum is the worker's ordinary pay within the meaning of the Act, providing it equals or exceeds the amount required to be paid under the award. This was the opinion expressed to-day by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in giving judgment concerning pay under the Annual Holidays Act, 1944. The plaintiff was Ray Moon (Mr. Dickson), a journeyman baker, and the defendants, Kents Bakeries, Limited (Mr. Alderton).

In October,- 1944, the plaintiff became entitled to his statutory holiday of two weeks and was paid £12 11/6 holiday pay. He claimed that he should have been paid £16 11/6 and brought the action to recover £4 Plaintiff contended that the weekly wage received by him, £8 5/9, was his ordinary pay, but the defendant contended that an extra 2/ an hour, paid in respect of three hours worked each day between 1.30 and 4.30 p.m., was in the nature of a special payment and did-not form part of the plaintiff's ordinary pay. The magistrate held that the plaintiff was paid a weekly sum calculated at the time rate of pay prescribed in the award for the normal number of ordinary working hours. His holiday pay should have been assessed on that basis. The plaintiff, therefore, was entitled to judgment for the amount claimed, less the reduction required to be made by the defendants in respect of social and national security charges.