CHARGE AGAINST UNION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26967, 17 February 1953, Page 5

CHARGE AGAINST UNION

DUNEDIN WATERSIDE DISPUTE MAGISTRATE DISMISSES COMPLAINT (New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, February 16. A charge under the Waterfront Industry Emergency Regulations, 1946, against the Dunedin Waterfront Workers’ Union was dismissed by Mr J. G. Warrington, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court today/ The union, through Mr W. J. Meade, pleaded not guilty to a complaint that it had on January 12 committed an offence against the regulations in that it instigated a discontinuance df employment when a majority of members of the union refused to accept engagements for waterside work in which they were usually employed. Prosecuting, Mr W. H. Carson established through the evidence of Alexander Matheson, Dunedin branch manager of the Waterfront Industry Commission, that on January 12 about 320 men were on the register of the Dunedin waterfront bureau. Gershom George David Langley, a waterfront bureau clerk, said that the work discs of 224 men had been put on the board that day. Langley said he heard about 9.30 a.m. that work would start at 1 p.m. It had been raining all morning. By 9.50 a.m. the work board was on view. He took it down at 11.30 a.m. None of the discs had been lifted to signify acceptance of work. He agreed with Mr Meade that it was desirable for the union men to know as soon as possible whether they were wanted. John Alexander McPhail, secretary tc the Port Employers’ Association and the Port Conciliation Committee, said there was a limit of 325 men to be employed on the Dunedin wharves. Case for Defence Mr Meade called no evidence. He said there was “not one tittle of evidence’’ that the men had neglected to take down their discs for work they usually did. It was set out in the conditions of employment that the gang foreman should explain the work to be done, but there was no evidence that this procedure had been followed. On those two considerations the prosecution must fail, said Mr Meade, but a third submission would be fatal to the prosecution.. The Court had heard no evidence of the union’s membership. The bureau had a list of men on the port register, but there was nothing to show that l the register bore the names of all union members. Thus it had not been proved, as required bv statute, that a majority of union members had refused to accept engagements. Prosecution’s Reply Mr Carson argued that the men’s not taking down their work discs spoke for itself. Of the second submission he said that in the absence of evidence to the contrary it would be impossible that the men were required for other than normal work. There had been no cross-examination on the point of what sort of work was required of the men. Of the third argument, Mr Carson said he had shown that men to be employed on the waterfront did not come to the employer through the union, but the other way around. Tne port register had on it a limited number of men who had come through an employer and were required to join the , union- A condition, therefore, of a man’s becoming a union member was that he should have his napie on the register. The Magistrate: “I think you are takmg it further than the statute goes. Since it is a charge against the union itself, and seeing it is equivalent to a charge of a criminal nature, the prosecution must establish its case beyond doubt.’’ The Magistrate said that, as far as Mr Meade’s first two arguments went, it cotfld be taken that the men were to have been employed in the work they usually did, but tfie third sub mission was much stronger. It was clear from evidence that a majoritv of workers on the port register failed to remove their discs, but he was not satisfied that it naturally followed that a majority of union members had failed tp accept employment.