ASSESSMENT OF 1931 WAGES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21939, 13 November 1936, Page 15

ASSESSMENT OF 1931 WAGES

AN IMPORTANT POINT DECIDED CASE REFERRED BACK TO LABOUR DEPARTMENT (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, November 12. An important point has been decided by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in an appeal from an assessment of the 1931 rates of wages of hat workers, which was made by the Labour Department under section 17, sub-section (3) of the Finance Act. As an inspector of factories made an assessment of rates to be paid to workers in Auckland by a firm which in 1931 had no hat factory in Auckland, but had one in Dunedin, the inspector in his asessment took into consideration the rates that were ruling in Auckland in 1931. In an appeal before the magistrate, Mr Lisle Alderton, on behalf of the employer, pointed out that the section required the inspector to fix the wages that would have been payable to an employee on March 31, 1931, “if on that date he had been employed by the same employer in performance of such services,” In the circumstances, he claimed, the inspector was not entitled to take into consideration the rates that were paid by other employers. In the present case, the rates presumably would be related to those paid by the employer in its Dunedin factory. The magistrate referred the case back to the Labour Department for a fresh assessment.