APPLICATION OF HOTEL AWARD

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26126, 31 May 1950, Page 4

APPLICATION OF HOTEL AWARD

HOSPITAL WORKERS SEEK EXCLUSION HEARING IN SUPREME COURT (New Zealand t?ress Association) ~ . WELLINGTON, May 30. Male nurses, X-ray technicians, physiotherapists, and other hospital technical workers and assistants, through the Attorney-General, and with the support of hospital boards, sought a writ from the Supreme Court to-day to prevent their inclusion in the award applying to hotels, restaurants and related trades. Mr Justice Hutchison was on the Bench. Two cases resting on the same facts were heard concurrently, the defendants being the same in each. In the first the plaintiff was the AttorneyGeneral, acting on behalf of employees likely to be affected and not yet members of the unions, for whom Mr R. E. Harding appeared, with him Messrs G. Smith and J. Oakley. The Hospital Boards’ Industrial Union of Employers, represented by Mr S. G. Stephenson, was the plaintiff in the second case. In both cases the defendants were Cecil Porter Smith. Registrar of Industrial Unions, for whom Mr G. F. Grieve appeared, and the New Zealand Federated Hotel, Restaurant, and Related Trades Employees’ Industrial Association of Workers and the Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury District Hotel, Hospital and Related Trades Employees’ Industrial Unions of Workers, all of whom were represented by Mr A. J. Mazengarb. The plaintiffs claimed that last November an amendment was made to the rules of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union by the first defendant to include persons employed by hospitals as porters, orderlies, male nurses, male nurse trainees, technicians, theatre and mortuary attendants, workers in X-ray and massage departments, laboratories, dispensaries, plaster departments, or in domestic duties. None of these workers were previously eligible for inclusion in an award and a dispute was created involving them in December last year. The Hospital Boards’ Industrial Union of Emnloyers claimed that the amendment to the Hotel Workers’ Union rules was ultra vires and that the amendment was unlawfully registered by’ the defendant Smith. A writ of mandamus was sought to compel Smith to remove the amendment from the register or alternatively an injunction directing him to do so. An injunction was also sought restraining the industrial association from continuing with the dispute unless the amendment was removed. Another injunction was sought to restrain the third defendants, the district unions, from using the amended name or in anv wav acting on the amendment. The defendants denv the allegations of the statement of claim. “Nothing in Common” Mr Harding, opening the AttorneyGeneral’s case, said the objection taken .to the inclusion of male nurses, technicians, and other assistants in the hotel and restaurant workers’ industrial dispute was that they were professional people and technicians and the union had nothing in common with them or their jobs. Male nurses went through a fairly severe syllabus of training and their own organisation was just emerging. If an award were made involving all the technical assistants quoted, bacteriologists and laboratory assistants would be obliged to join the union. Counsel said that the present regulations for fixing salaries and conditions of employment in hospitals for these people were considered more suitable and in keeping with the dignity and status of professional people —“much more so than being part of a union asking for better conditions for openers of oysters.” Mr Mazengarb: And also for nurses and porters. Counsel quoted the definition of a related trade from the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and said it was a question here whether a bacteriologist was in a branch of the same trad* 3 as a waitress in a restaurant. Mr R. J. Tavlor, secretary of the Nurses’ and Midwives’ Registration Board, said m-le nurses had first been ’•ngistered in 19-’7 and there were now 80 so registered. He gave details of them training. Evidence was heard when the Court adjourned until to-morrow.