CLAIMS FOR PAY INCREASES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27047, 23 May 1953, Page 8

CLAIMS FOR PAY INCREASES

Argument Based On Cost Of Living ADMISSIBILITY IN COURT OF ARBITRATION (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 22. If an applicant for an increased award wage introduced the cost-of-living issue in his submissions, then the Court must take account of sucti submissions, said Judge Stilwell in the Court of Arbitration today.

The Court was hearing an application by the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union for a new award. Yesterday, Mr F. L. Langley, the employees’ advocate, presented his case for an increase of Is 6d an hour, or £3 a week, in the minimum wage for carpenters, and took the cost of living as a major factor in his submissions. Early in the hearing, Mr P. J. Luxford, advocate for the employers, asked the Court whether it was going to make an analysis of the case as for a general wage order, upon Which, he said, it seemed Mr Langley was about to embark. Judge Stilwell said it would-appear improper for the Court to express an opinibn at that stage as to what shape the case should take. “Cost of living must be taken into account in considering an application for an increase in the minimum wage under the award. Judge Stilwell said. When the Court resumed today, Judge Stilwell said he had no intention of indicating that the Court was obliged to take the cost of living into account in hearing wage claims under individual awards. What was intended was simply that if an applicant for an award wage rate increase introduced the cost-of-living issue to his submissions then the Court must take account of such submissions. At an early stage of the application yesterday, it would have been improper for the Court to comment on the way the case for the applicants had been shaped. The workers' representative on the Court (Mr F. A. Allerby) said he did not see how wage rates could be discussed without taking account of the cost of living. Mr Luxford said that, in a general wage application to be heard by the Court at a later date, answers to cost of living arguments for a wage increase would be presented in much more detail than was possible at the present hearing. He said that in a similar wage application for an increase of Is 6d an hour by the Auckland (56-mile radius) Carpenters’ Union, an award was made as recently as April 17 granting no increase. In that application, several of the issues raised were practically the same as in the present claim, he said. “Terrific confusion would exist if the Court were to make a different wage rate from that made so recently for another section of the carpenters,” Mr Luxford said. Replying to the employers submissions, Mr Langley said the employers’ advocate had stated, that a case was to be taken by the Federation of Labour for a general wage increase, based on the cost of living, and that the cost of living should not be a matter for consideration by the Court in individual award applications. The Court had disagreed with Mr Luxford on this.

“The carpenters claim that the Stabilisation Regulations do not prevent the Court from granting our application,” Mr Langley said. “If Mr Luxford’s contentions are of any worth, then it is futile for an application such as ours to be brought before the Court. This would be unfair, not only to the carpenters, but to all workers in New Zealand.” The Couri reserved its decision on the union’s application.