APPEAL DISMISSED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1945, Page 6

APPEAL DISMISSED

HOLIDAY PAY CASE CASUAL WORKER'S PLEA Judgment was given to-day by Mr. Justice Callan in the holiday stamps case, in which Arthur Reginald Eyre, carpenter (Dr. Finlay). appealed from a decision of Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in favour of the Auckland Stevedoring Company, Ltd. (Mr. S. G. Stephenson) in a claim by appellant for 2/1 alleged to be due under the Annual Holidays Act. Appellant claimed that, as a casual worker, the computation respecting the stamps on his holiday card had been wrongly calculated. He said he worked 101 hours (including overtime), and his ordinary time rate was 3/1 an hour, so that he was entitled to holiday stamps representing one25th of 101 times 3/1, or 12/5. Defendant had calculated the amount excluding overtime, making it 10/4, and the magistrate accepted that contention.

In the course of his judgment his Honor said he did not propose to consider speculations by counsel as to the object of the legislature in apparently discriminating between casual, or C class workers, and permanent and temporary workers. He considered only the actual language of the Statute, and held that the case was governed by the language of the proviso to Section 5 (2) of the Act, which used the expression "ordinary pay." On this he came to the conclusion that no workers in this casual class increased their annual pay by having worked hours in excess of those in a normal week or fraction of a week. He consequently came to the same conclusion as the magistrate, and the appeal was dismissed.