DISPUTE ABOUT WAGES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26186, 9 August 1950, Page 8

DISPUTE ABOUT WAGES

WOMAN EMPLOYED AT SKATING RINK UNION CLAIMS £95 FROM EMPLOYER Decision was reserved in the Magiserate’s Court at Christchurch yesterday in a case in which the Canterbury Hotel, Hospital, Restaurant and Related Trades Employees’ Union (Mr B. A. Barter), proceeded against De Luxe Skating Rink, Limited (Mr E. B. E. Taylor) for the recovery of wages, overtime and other benefits amounting to £95. This sum, the union claimed, should have been paid to Mrs Nancy Cox by the defendant company. Mr R. M. Grant, S.M., was on the Bench. , x x . , Mr Barter claimed that a substantial part of the duties performed by Mrs Cox while employed by the defendant came wjthin the scope of the New Zealand Tearooms and Restaurant Employees’ Award, and that she had not been paid wages in accordance with that award. He said that the Magistrate’s decision would be of great importance to industry, since it would determine whether an emplpyer was entitled to require a worker to perform tasks with a higher late of compensation than those which he was employed to perform, without an increase in wages, so long as the worker spent no more than a “reasonably” small proportion' of his time on the more highly-rated tasks. The union’s case rested, Mr Barrer said, on the doctrine of the “indivisibility of labour,”' whereby an employer might not employ a worker to perform tasks covered by two or more separate awards. He referred the Court to several decisions by which employers so doing were compelled to pay employees at the higher rate, even though the higher paid duties comprised only a small proportion of the working day. ’ Case for Defence Mr Taylor submitted that the defendant had properly employed Mrs Cox under the terms of the Taranaki, Wellington Marlborough, Canterbury and Southland Places of Amusement (other than theatres) Employees’ Award. He said- that his case rested on an alternative and conflicting labour employment principle—that of “substantial employment,” whereby an employer might pay a worker according to the provisions of the award which convered the greater proportion of his labouring time. It was stated that Mrs Cox had been employed by the defendant from April 1, 1948, to December 16, 1948. and from March 18, 1949, to August 13, 1949. as a cloakroom attendant, whose incidental duties included the sale of ice cream, soft drinks and sweets, and the managing of a loud-speaker recordplaying system.