MINIMUM WEEKLY WAGE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24074, 9 October 1943, Page 4

MINIMUM WEEKLY WAGE

EFFECT OP AUCKLAND CASE LARGE SUMS INVOLVED The effect of a Supreme Court decision at Auckland on the order, made last year for a minimum weekly wage in essential undertakings is now being studied in Canterbury. In vew of the large amount of money involved it is considered likely that the case will be taken to the Appeal Court. The case, in which a magistrate’s decision supporting the interpretation of an employe/* was reversed, concerns particularly the meat freezing industry, but in the North Island, at least, other essential industries are likely to be affected considerably. During the Supreme Court hearing, counsel for the respondent, the Westfield Freezing Company, said that, if the interpretation put on the order by the appellant were adopted, it would involve the company in additional wage payments of more than £12,000, for which it would receive no return. Another estimate is that the total cost to the freezing industry may run into six figures. The South Island is said to be less affected than the North Island. The case for the appellant was that, in calculating the minimum weekly wage payable to a worker in terms of the order, all payments for work outside the* ordinary weekly hours of the industry must be disregarded, and that, if a worker did not earn in ordinary working hours the minimum wage, the difference between that amount and the actual amount earned in ordinary hours should be paid. The respondent’s interpretation was stated by Mr Justice Callan to be; “A worker employed in an undertaking to which the order applied shall be entitled to have his actual earnings on any day supplemented as follows; in respect of any day on which his earnings are less than would have been earned by working full time at ordinary rates, he shall be paid the deficiency, but so that not more than £5 10s shall be paid in respect of such deficiency in any one week.”

The clause on which the respondent relied was referred to by his Honour, who took an entirely different view of its meaning. It seemed to him that, instead of cutting down the meaning of the clause requiring that overtime should not be taken into account in calculating the minimum wage to be paid, it provided that special payment for unusually hard work in ordinary hours should also not be brought into the calculation. Although the case concerned men employed on an hourly basis, it is thought that this part of the judgment may be quoted as an authority in the case of pieceworkers, and the implications of this are now being considered.