Ballot advts not sufficient—judge

Press, 27 April 1989, Page 4

Ballot advts not sufficient —judge

PA Wellington The battle over compulsory union membership for farm workers has ended with a Labour Court ruling that the Workers’ Union did not sufficiently advertise last year’s ballots on the issue. Three farm workers — Stephen Shaw, lan Fisher and Kevin Julian — challenged the legality of the ballot, which resulted in 102 farm workers voting in favour of compulsory unionism, 46 against and two informal votes. Chief Judge Jack Horn said in his written judgment that farm workers covered by the three awards, for sheep, farm and dairy workers, had not previously been unionised. The membership of the voluntary Farm Workers’ Association was never large, ahd when it merged with the Workers’ Union its total membership was about 60. Statistics submitted to the Labour Court showed there were at least 13,504 farm workers in New Zealand and, at most, up to 30,000. Judge Horn said that in some very remote areas “communication has its difficulties.” The timing of rural mail deliveries was discussed.

But though more time could have been given, the union, registrar of unions and returning officer complied with statutory requirements as to time. He said advertising required by the returning officer was the crucial issue. Advertising only in “New Zealand Truth” was insufficient. Advertisements should have been placed in newspapers likely to be delivered to farm premises in any district. “The cost would have been considerable. But the essence of the matter is the duty of both the union and the returning officer to take such steps that are likely to reach potential voters.” That failure might have affected the ballot’s result.

“Even 10 per cent of, say, 15,000 farm workers would have produced a very much larger number of votes,” he said. “The size of the ballot is of no significance so long as the opportunities for voting were sufficient.”

In this case they were not, Judge Horn said.

He found that the ballots were not conducted in accordance with the Labour Relations Act