APPLICATION OF HOTEL AWARD

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26127, 1 June 1950, Page 7

APPLICATION OF HOTEL AWARD

INJUNCTION SOUGHT AGAINST UNION DECISION RESERVED (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 31. “We are merely trying to clear up' the position of those men who have always been members of our union and provided for by the previous awards. We do not seek to gain one ilew member as a result of our new rules,” said the secretary of the Wellington District Hotel, Hospital, and Restaurant Workers’ Union (Francis O’Sullivan) in the Supreme Court today. O’Sullivan was giving evidence in an action by the Attorney-General and the Hospital Boards’ Industrial Union of Employers to seek to restrain the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Unions from including the word “hospital” in their titles and from including technicians in the radiology, bacteriology, physiotherapy and other skilled departments, m award proceedings. “The word ‘technician’ was not our choice,” said O’Sullivan. "It was coined by an Auckland medical superintendent in the course of conciliation proceedings and applied to a theatre attendant, who the doctor thought was a very good man—in fact a technician.” Mr A. J. Mazengarb, opening the case for the defendant unions, said that although the onus did not lie on the unions, evidence? would be called to show that hospitals, and hotels and restaurants were related industries. The Wellington Hospital Board and all others made a charge for the maintenance of a patient although none was made for medical and nursing attention and in this respect hospitals were definitely related to the other trades. The proceedings had been misconceived, said Mr Mazengarb. There was no relation between eligibility for membership of a union and compulsory membership. It was a matter of common knowledge that Mr Winston Churchill was a member of the Bricklayers’ Union, that the late Mr J. H. Thomas was a member of the Engine Drivers’ Union, and that a reverend gentleman, formerly a Director of Broadcasting in New Zealand, was a member of the Waterside Workers’ Union. “It cannot be suggested in any of these cases that the union has the power to rule or govern outside of its trade.” he said. “Once a person is eligible for membership he can become a member, but not until he is engaged in the trade are his terms of employment subject to an award or is he required to join a union. There is no evidence before the Court that male nurses as a class object to inclusion in the union. There is. in fact, ample machinery available for male nurses to form a union of their own if they are dissatisfied with the treatment they are getting from their union now.” Evidence was also given by Frederick George Young, secretary of the Auckland branch of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union and of the New Zealand Federation. Mr Justice Hutchison reserved his decision