APPEAL FAILS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20426, 22 December 1931, Page 4

APPEAL FAILS.

* BREACH OF FREEZING WORKERS' AWARD. ARBITRATION COURT'S JUDGMENT. , A -case of interest to freezing companies. throughout New Zealand was heard in the Arbitration Court yesterday, in the form of an appeal against the judgment of Mr E. D. Mosley, S.M., given in a case heard on October Bth, ;1931,' in which the North Canterbury i Shcepfarmers' Co-operative Freezing, Export, and Agency Co., Ltd., was convicted'for a breach of award in relation to the terms of employment of piepickers. The' Company was the appellant, and Noel Harry Graham, Inspector of Awards, was the respondent. Mr Justice Fraaer presided, and with him on the- Bench were Messrs AV. Cecil Prime (employers' representative) and A. L, Monteith (employees' rcpreseu'tative). After legal argument the Court retired, returning to bring in a dismissal of the appeal. The appeal was based on points of law and fact against the decision of the Magistrate's Court at Christchurch in an action wherein Graham, as plaintiff, claimed the recovery of a penalty for alternative breaches of the Canterbury Freezing Works and Related Trades Employees' Award from the appellant. The breaches with which the appellant was charged in the lower Court were that the company, being a party bound by the provisions of the award, employed men on pie-picking from the sweated heap and failed to pay them not less than the minimum rate of wages, and also that the company employed men on pie-picking at piecework rates without obtaining the agreement of the Freezing Workers' Industrial Union of Workers. Judgment had been entered for the plaintiff for the sum of £2, on tho first alleged breachr. The grounds of appeal, as outlined by appellant's counsel, were that the circumstances of employment disclosed that tho pie-pickers' work was undertaken as under independent contract, free from all control and supervision by the company. / Counsel for the respondent submitted that pie-pickers were employed as piece-workers and that their circumstances of employment brought them under the award. Question of Piecework. '' The distinction between piecework and work under contract is sometimes exceedingly n&rrow," said his Honour in dismissing the appeal. "Sometimes it is very difficult to draw the line, The evidence before the . .Magistrate showed great confusion of thought,.and the opinions of tho parties themselves as to the nature, of the work were not at all clear." It would bo necessary to look at the facts, he continued. The men in question liad been engaged in pie-picking for the company for 10 seasons, and had been paid award rates. During the 1930-31 season their wages bad been lowered without any attcndant; alteration in their work: In the second place, the element of control was the telling factor between contract and employed labour. In the case of an independent contract the principal was entitled to interfere only under the agreement made beforehand. However, the absence or presence of control was not alWays a satisfactory test. Pie/picking was extremely unsavoury ivorkj." and not much control could or would be exercised under any circumstances. The third point was the absence of regular wording hours, but the award itself provided ' that overtime should not be paid for this class of work. It would bo perfectly in order for the company to employ men at piepicking without interfering in their hours of work. However, the main point in the case was the fact that the men had worked for. 10 years in accordance with the provisions of the award, and that .the only recent alteration had been in,their rate of pay. "We cannot see that the Magistrate has 1 drawn a wrong conclusion from the facts : placed before him," concluded his Honour, "and the appeal will therefore be dismissed."