Union Secretary Held To Have Incited Strike

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30454, 30 May 1964, Page 3

Union Secretary Held To Have Incited Strike

A penalty of £5 was imposed on Douglas Mcßae Warren, a freezing worker alleged to have incited a strike at the New Zealand Refrigerating Company’s works at Islington in October, 1963, in a reserved judgment delivered by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M.> in the Magistrate’s Court at Christchurch yesterday.

At the hearing on April 27 the plaintiff, the New Zealand Freezing Companies’ Industrial Union of Employers, claimed a penalty of £lO against Warren.

Mr W. R. Birks, of Wellington, appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr B. McClelland appeared for the defendant, who denied the allegation.

In his judgment, the Magistrate said in his view the motion for a non-suit should be dismissed, and the plaintiff was entitled to judgment. “The plaintiff, I gather, •ought only to establish a principle in regard to the matter in dispute and the amount of the penalty would be unimportant.” The statement of claim •aid that Warren was bound by the New Zealand Freezing Workers Award, and on Thursday, October 24, an unlawful strike (within the meaning of those words as used in sections 193 and 189 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1954) occurred by workers at the Islington works, who were bound by the award.

Warren, a worker at the Islington works and secretary of the Islington branch of the Canterbury, Marlborough, and Nelson Freezing Works and Related Trades Union, incited or instigated the strike, the plaintiff claimed. At the conclusion of the case for the plaintiff, Mr McClelland submitted there was no case to answer, said the judgment. He claimed the proceedings were of a criminal nature and required proof beyond reasonable doubt. He submitted all matters must be proved. Under the agreement reached at a compulsory conference in Wellington on June

15, 1959, it was agreed that the maximum payment by the company to union officials while occupied on union business with the prior approval of management would be, in the case of the president or secretary, two hours a week at appropriate rates. It was also agreed that in future all disputes must be settled in terms of the award and that work would proceed as normal. From the date of the conference to September 20, 1963. the provision limiting the hours during which union officials could be paid while absent on union business was not strictly adhered to. “Whether this was by sufferance or agreement I do not think it is necessary to determine.”

It seemed clear that in stopping work on the morning of October 24 and in failing to report for work on the afternoon of that day and on the Friday and Tuesday mornings following, the workers did discontinue their employment and their absence could not possibly have any result other than to reduce their normal output, said the Magistrate. “The workers must know loss and inconvenience would be caused by their absenting themselves from work and it must be assumed therefore that this was their intention. I find therefore that the stoppage of work for the purpose of holding the meeting on the morning of October 24, 1963, was a ‘strike’ within the meaning of section 189 of the act.”

Considering the “remaining and more difficult” question posed by Mr McClelland as to whether the defendant incited or instigated the strike, the Magistrate said it was quite clear from the evidence that it was Warren who went about telling the men that morning that there was to be a meeting.

“It may be, as he says (although he was somewhat vague about it) that some men had asked him to call a meeting. Nowhere does he say that the men asked for a meeting forthwith.

“There could have been a meeting in the lunch hour, but be that as it may, surely it was the defendant’s duty to tell the men that to call a meeting then was a breach of the award and of the Wellington agreement. “The defendant certainly called the meeting and whether he did so at the request of several of the men or not, is, I think, quite unimportant “Stirred Up” Men “Now even if some men did ask the defendant to call a meeting (and I have some reservations about that) it was he who acted on the request and who stirred up or animated the remainder of the men to stop work and attend the meeting. “There can, it seems to me, be no doubt defendant was responsible for the men stopping work and for the meeting taking place that morning. “On the evidence, it is certain no meeting would have been held that morning if Warren had stayed in his place on the chain and not gone about telling the men there was to be a meeting. “I accordingly hold that he incited the members of his branch to strike on the morning of October 24, 1963.” The Magistrate said there was another significant aspect of the matter. The only question settled on the morning of October 24, when Warren and Austen saw Sellwood, was that because he had already been absent from work for more than two hours that week, Warren was having his pay stopped even while he sat and talked.

The only matter that Warren could report on to the men was that he, as their representative, was not being paid by the company for attending to their affairs. Real Purpose Events suggested the real complaint and the real purpose of the meeting called by Warren was to try to secure payment for himself for all time spent on union affairs. “I do not think I have to decide whether there was any firm agreement between Warren and the previous manager or whether Mr Wilson’s decision to adhere to the, Wellington agreement was a breach of any such arrangement.”

All he was called on to determine was whether on October 24, 1963, there was a strike within the meaning of section 189 of the Act, and whether it was incited or instigated by Warren. “This is a civil action, and haved reserved the question of a non-suit, I am entitled to take all the evidence into consideration. In any event, I am satisfied on a review of the evidence for the plaintiff, a prima facie case had been made out.

“In my view the motion for a non-suit should be dismissed. The plaintiff is entitled to judgment.”