Award talks resume without Court advice

Press, 14 May 1985, Page 9

Award talks resume without Court advice

Conciliation talks for the bulk freight-forwarders’ employees award will resume in Auckland tomorrow. The talks are for Auckland, Canterbury, Westland and Hawke’s Bay workers. The January talks were deferred until the Arbitration Court decided whether all employers in the industry should be bound by the award by way of a blanket clause. In a reserved decision the Court has declined to offer advice or opinion on whether there should be a blanket clause.

The Court heard the parties in Wellington on March 5 and gave its decision on April 30. The secretary of the Canterbury Stores, Packing and Warehouse Workers’ Union, Mr Paul Piesse, said last evening that the unions would return to conciliation and promote their cause there.

“If anyone gets in the way we’ll have to deal with it then,” he said.

Mr Piesse said last month that 19 of the 20 union and employer assessors had agreed on a definition of the industry. One employer’s assessor had not agreed, and that was why the unions had sought an opinion from the Court.

Judge N. P. Williamson said in his reserved decision that the Court had given considerable thought and devoted 'some time to research about the problem placed before it, but had concluded that the proceedings under section 80 of the Industrial Relations Act were misconceived.

“The ‘appropriate content’ of the clauses defining the industry is a matter to be decided by the conciliation council or by this Court exercising its arbitral functions. This Court should not express opinions under section 80 as to what ought to be agreed in council or settled by arbitration,” said Judge Williamson. He said that the 1984 amendments to the act

made it even more important that the Court should not exceed its powers under section 80. “Ever since about the time of the inception of our predecessor, the Court of Arbitration in 1895, one of the central rights contained in industrial relations legislation has been the right of an applicant to obtain, if it wished, an arbitration of its claims.

“This right was suspended for a short period during Depression times but then reinstated. The right was removed under the Industrial Relations Amendment Act, 1984, which came into force on December 6, 1984. At present, arbitration is possible only with the consent of the parties,” said Judge Williamson. It was even more important now than before that the Court, when exercising functions under section 80, should not trespass upon arbitral functions which are now only exercisable by consent.” he said.