ALLEGED BREACH OF AWARD

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22464, 27 July 1938, Page 16

ALLEGED BREACH OF AWARD

STAFFING OF BAKEHOUSE DECISION RESERVED BY ARBITRATION COURT An appeal was heard at a sitting of the Court of Arbitration yesterday against the decision of a Magistrate who dismissed a case brought by the Department of Labour against L. A. Woodward, Ltd., for an alleged breach of the Northern, Wellington, and Canterbury Bakers’ and Pastrycooks’ and their Labourers’ award. The issue placed taefoie the Court was the need for employing a foreman in a bakehouse. Mr Justice Hunter presided. With him were Mr V. Duff, employers’ representative, and Mr A. W. Croskery, employees’ representative. Dr. A. L. Haslam appeared for the defendant, and Mr R. T. Bailey for the Department of Labour. Mr Bailey said that in the Lower Court, on alternative counts, claims of £lO penalties were made for breaches of the award on the grounds that A. Col lander had been employed as a foreman baker and received £5 10s a week, instead of the award rate of £6. and that A. Anderson was employed as a foreman and received the same amount of wages. The payment of £fi a week was required for one of them in the provisions of the award, he said. The times that Mr Woodward was in his bakehouse, ns shown in the evidence of Ihe Lower Court, were reviewed by Mr Bailey, who submitted that an employer was only entitled to be classed as a foreman if he was a competent baker and if he did the work of a foreman, The evidence showed that Mr Woodward was in his bakehouse occasionally between the hours of C n.m. and 7 a.m., and his staff began work at 10 p.m. and ‘worked until 7 a.m. There was no doubt that Mr Woodward was a competent baker, but before he could call himself a foreman he would have to be in the bakehouse more than four hours a day. It would not be sufficient for him to be about the office for the rest of the day. “If a man has several men engaged in a business he must employ a foreman or da the work of one himself,” said Mr Bailey. Even if there were cnly one man’in a bakery ho should he oaid foreman’s wages, he added. Dr. Haslam said there was no provision in the award requiring a foreman to he employed. It was a matter of interpretation of the award, and ihe only point was whether any one of the men in the bakehouse _ was employed as a foreman. He claimed that Mr Woodward performed all the duties of a foreman that were necessary. The bakery was an automatic one and required less supervision than one which was not automatic. No apprentices were employed in the bakery. Moreover, it had not been proved that either Andqrson or Collander was the foreman. The Court reserved its decision.