BREACHES OF AWARD

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24020, 7 August 1943, Page 6

BREACHES OF AWARD

£SO PENALTY IMPOSED HARBOUR BOARD LOSES CASE Penalties totalling £SO were imposed on the Lyttelton Harbour Board by Mr F. F. Reid, S.M., in the Magistrate s. Court yesterday, for breaches of the New Zealand Harbour Board employees’ award. Mr M. J. Gresson appeared for the inspector of Awards, who claimed penalties of £IOO on each of two alleged breaches of the award. It was alleged that the board had employed C, Welsh, a boatman, on Sunday, April 18, 1943, and Sunday, April 25, 1943. and had failed to pay him the award rate of wages, Mr Gresson submitted that if a breach of the award were proved, a punitive Penalty should be imposed. This was the third occasion on which the Lyttelton Harbour Board had been proceeded against, and it could not be said that the present proceedings were anything m the nature of a test case. The board had stated that it had adopted the course it was following with its eyes open, and there were Indications that it was still deliberately planning to evade the law. "Board Had Done Nothing Right” For two years, added Mr Gresson. the Employees' Union had laboured under what the Court said was a wrong interpretation of the award and had kept within the law in every way. On the other hand, the Lyttelton Harbour Board had done nothing right. Although the members of the board were an estimable body of men, in this particular case they were taking a wrong view and were obstinate and pigrheaded. Unfortunately they were probably being Influenced too much by Wellington. . . Evidence given by Charles Welsh showed that he had worked on two Sundays. and under the award was entitled to double pay. ’ Cross-examined by counsel for the Harbour Board (Mr J. F. B. Stevenson, of Wellirgton) Welsh said that for Sunday work he was entitled to a minimum of four hours at 5s BJd an hour. On April 18 he worked for about two hours. Case for Defence Opening the case for the defence, Mr. Stevenson said that the Employees’ Union and the Labour Department had been asked on numerous occasions during the last two years to bring civil proceedings against harbour boards for any wages allegedly due to employees. The Labour Department, under Section 30 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1936, had power to sue in a civil court for any wages claimed by a worker The worker himself could also sue a board. However. Mr Stevenson continued, the Employees’ Union had consistently refused to bring any civil action for wages, On a civil action for wages, there was a right of appeal to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal Counsel for the Employees' Union, added Mr Stevenson, had stated in open Court that the union refused to have any of these claims for wages adjudicated upon by the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal. Instead of following the usual constitutional methods for recovery of wages by civil action, the Employees' Union and the Labour Department had taken penalty proceedings against various boards, alleging the nonpayment of wages as breaches of the award, with the object of having harbour boards coerced by fines ’into submission, so that they would pay* the wages alleged to be due. “Abuse of Court Procedure” Mr Stevenson claimed that the object of this was to debar the harbour boards from access to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, which should decide claims of this class. He submitted that the course being adopted was an abuse of the procedure of the Court. The Government now had before Parliament an amendment to the act, said Mr Stevenson. The purpose and object of •that amendment was, he said,, to deny employers the right of access on appeal to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in claims forwwa n s made against them by employees . The amending bill provided that moneys due to a worker might be recovered in the, same manner as a penalty for a breach of an award, that was, by a form of proceedings in which the final judgment was by the Cour.t of Arbitration, with .no right of annual therefrom. Mr Stevenson referred to a public statement by the Minister of Labour (the Hon. P. C; Webb), in which the latter stated that the-bill "was on the case of Wilson v Dalgety and Company. Ltd., and the harbour board cases where the employers had refused to pay moneys to workers in accordance with decisions of the Arbitration Court, but had endeavoured to have civil action taken for recovery in order that they might obtain a Suprem'e Court decision. . . In future, under this'bill the Court of Arbitration would have power to deal ■ with these cases.” “Road Marked ‘No Exit’ ” “It is clear that under the bill workers will be given the right of taking employers along a road which is marked ’no exit’ when the Court of Arbitration is reached.” said Mr Stevenson, “At the present time, that Court has no jurisdiction in civil claims The bill gives it to 'he Court, and takes away the employers' right of access to the highest courts of th» land—a right which has always been np-'n to them, and which has been their nrotection on civil claims.” Imnosing ne'-alties of £23 for each of the two breaches, the Magistrate said he coutd not be blind to the fact that this was the third occasion on which proceed*n«s had been brought against the hoard it was true, as he had said before, that the board was the guardian of public r unds. and it was no doubt acting on ad'■ie* in endeavouring to protect those funds. P-eu-itv for appeal was fixed at £SO and costs.