HOURS IN BAKING INDUSTRY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22465, 28 July 1938, Page 7

HOURS IN BAKING INDUSTRY

♦ ORDER OF MR JUSTICE PAGE TO BE FOLLOWED (PBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON July 27. In the Dominion baking industry dispute, before the Arbitration Court today, Mr Justice O’Regan said that it was just two years since Mr Justice Page had delivered the judgment of the Court on the question of hours in the baking industry. He had decided it was impracticable to apply the 40-hour week to the industry, and the judgment was a very detailed one, showing that the matter had been thoroughly considered. Mr Justice O’Regan said he desired the parties to understand that he would never make it possible for the quoting of one Judge against another. Generally speaking, he considered himself bound by the decisions of his predecessors. In this instance, the question of hours having been so recently settled by Mr Justice Page’s order, as well as by the award made subsequently, the matter must be considered as settled so far as the present dispute was concerned. He recalled, too, the Court’s intimation in December that it proposed to make an increase of 5s a week to all adult weekly workers, so that both ' parties had a plain intimation of thr mind of the Court, and thus should be able to narrow down the issues considerably.