GENERAL WAGES ORDER

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23177, 14 November 1940, Page 5

GENERAL WAGES ORDER

TWO APPLICATIONS REFUSED DAIRY FACTORY WORKERS AND CLERKS IN SHOPS ' Two applications for exclusion from the operation of the General Order of the Arbitration Court concerning the 5 per cent, increase in wages are refused in judgments of Mr Justice Tyndall of November 11. One concerned clerical workers in retail shops employed for 44 hours a week under the New Zealand and the Canterbury Clerical Workers’ • Award,, and the other concerned workers receiving more than £6 a week employed under the New Zealand Dairy Factory Employees’ Award and the various district factory managers’ awards. Reviewing the application covering clerical workers, the judgment states: "In the recent clerical workers’ awards provision was made for clerical workers who are required to work 44 hours a week to receive, in addition to the weekly wage, payment at ordinary rates for any time worked in excess of 40 hours a week. The grounds stated in the present application are that the payment of the full amount of the increase awarded by the general order discriminates unfairly between different classes of workers employed in the same establishments, and is calculated to cause friction and dissatisfaction between such classes of work* ers. Comparison with Others ‘‘lt was explained at the hearing of the application that storemen and watchmen under the retail shop assistants’ award received" no special consideration fur-working in excess of 40 hours a -week, although -in similar circumstances under the general storemen’s award a proportionate increase in pay is prescribed. As mentioned above, similar provision has recently been made in the clerical workers’ awards and is specially applicable to clerical workers in retail shops. “The Court cannot accept the contention that the payment of the full amount of the increase awarded by the General Order discriminates unfairly between the different classes of workers (clerical workers, storemen, and watchmen) employed in the same establishments (retail shops), as the change in the relative position of these workers hate not been brought by the operation of the General Order but by

the recent alteration in the clerical workers’ awards. The grounds given in the application cannot therefore be recognised by the Court as adequate, and the application is accordingly refused.” Effect of Increase The judgment in the application covering dairy factory workers states;— “The grounds set out in the application are:—(l) that such workers are already receiving sufficient to enable them to afford any increase in the cost of living which has so far occurred. (2) that payment of the increase awarded by the said General Order can only be passed on at the expense of the primary producer, by whom it cannot be passed on; CD that such increase accordingly constitutes an unfair and uneconomic burden on the primary industries of the Dominion.

“Willi regard to the second and third grounds, the Court, before making the General Order, heard considerable evidence concerning the position of the primary industries, and no further infomalion lias since been supplied to Die Court at the recent hearing of the application for exclusion, which, in the Court’s opinion, justifies a variation in tile General Order in so far as the employees in the dairy industry arc concerned.

"With regard to the first ground, the Court has given much careful thought to the position, but after taking all circumstances into consideration it is of the opinion that an order for exclusion is not justified on this ground. The applications are accordingly refused."