CARPENTER ASSAULTED

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 13

CARPENTER ASSAULTED

Job Delegate Fined (N.Z. Press association) AUCKLAND, October 8. Stand-over tactics to make men contribute to a strike fund could not be tolerated, said Mr M. C. Astley, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland today. He fined Victor Felix Begovich, aged 31, a workman, £8 and costs. Begovich pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. The police prosecutor (Mr G. A. Dallow) said that on July 4 the complainant, a carpenter, saw a list of names pinned to a board at a Freemans Bay construction site where he was working. The list was of contributors to the strike fund for men at Kawerau.

There was also a list of men on the site who had not contributed. Begovich’s name was typed at the bottom of the list.

The complainant took the list from the board and went to Begovich, a fellow workman and the job delegate on the site. Begovich grabbed for the list and then took hold of the complainant around the throat, wrenching his neck. The complainant was not hurt and continued working that day. The background to the charge was unsatisfactory, said the Magistrate. Begovich’s method was a kind of pressure to make people contribute to some sort of charity. “And when the complainant protested at this kind of stand-over he was bullied. The stand-over, in whatever walk of life it occurs, is not going to be tolerated by the courta."