BOARDING SCHOOLS AND HOSTELS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26026, 1 February 1950, Page 3

BOARDING SCHOOLS AND HOSTELS

EXEMPTION FROM AWARD SOUGHT (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jan. 31. Whether boarding schools are bound by the Private Hotel Workers’ Award occupied counsel in nearly a full day of argument in the Court of Arbitration to-day. The Court was hearing applications by several groups of £bhools for exemption from the award, and an application by university hostels and schools in Canterbury to be struck out as parties to the dispute. Decision on all the applications was reserved by Judge Dalglish, who indicated that he would first settle the points of law that had been raised. Mr J. F. B. Stevenson submitted for the applicants that they were entitled to exemption as none came within the award’s definition of a private hotel, which was defined as a “private hotel, bed and breakfast accommodation house, apartment house, boardinghouse or lodging house providing accommodation for five or more lodgers.’’ Mr A. J. Mazengarb, who opposed the applications for the union, said that the ordinary dictionary definition of a boarding-house or lodging-house covered portions of a school which provided accommodation, board and lodging for pupils. There could be no distinction between the boarding part of a boarding school and a hostel which was regarded by the Court as a private hotel within the meaning of the award.