BACK WAGES AND THE ARBITRATION ACT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 165, 6 April 1908, Page 6

BACK WAGES AND THE ARBITRATION ACT.

A good deal of sympathy will be felt for ,-Mr. Dixon, tlie Auckland employer, who is at present undergoing a term of imprisonment for refusing to pay "back: wages "to an employee who had _ originally contracted to render service foi" a consideration less than the rate of pay fixed by the Arbitration Court. _ Apparently Mr. Dixon does not, claim inability to pay the back wages: he has gone to gaol by way of protesting against what he considers the injustice of being'required to'pay " back wages " to a man'with whom ho had made a contract for service at a sum mutually agreed upon. The case is in some respects similar to one that occurred three years ago, when a firm of printers in Pahiatua were fined £10 by the Arbitration Court for having paid a youth named Reese in theii ; employment less than the rate of wages fixed by an award of the Court. No order was made as to the payment of back wa-gcjL : Beese had been in the service of,his employers since 1 1898, and had never made any objection to the wages lie had received, although these h,ad always been below the award rate from the time the award was made in 1902. The arrears were sued for in the Magistrate's Court,, and the case .was dismissed. ' On .'appeal to the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice upheld the claim for ."* back wages," and he was sustained by the Appeal' Court. The defence against the claim appears to have relied upon the contention that the wages were not recoverable, as the contract was illegal, and the parties, therefore,, in pari delicto. All the judges agreed, however, that the award overrode the prior contract, which was not illegal, but had been-rendered void. Mr. Dixon's submission to- imprisonment, therefore, is a personal protest against a-law which has the -most authoritative sanction possible within the. Dominion.

> To call for the immediate release of Mr. Dixon, as the Auckland "Herald" does, does credit to our contemporary's feelings rather than, to its judgment. Mr. Dixon has broken the law in the plainest possible fashion, and to release him because he considers the law harsh, or even because the law actually is harsh, is to establish the principle that Acts must be quietly ignored when men make, martyrs of themselves over them. What the case does suggest, however, is that there should be some limit set to the a.mount of back pay that a worker may claim when, being paid a sum that he agreed to accept, he suddenly presents his employer with a demand for the accumulated difference between the amount agreed on and the award rate. ' Some time ago the Employers' Federation urged the Minister for Labour to amend the Arbitration Act by incorporating in it the following provision :— ■

No workor shall have any claim upon any employer for wages or overtime which such workman may consider to be due to him over and above tho amount of wages and overtime paid to him on the regular payday by his employer, unless such workman shall, on or before the next ensuing payday, demand payment thereof.

This is a proposal that the Government may well consider. In the meantime, as Mr. Broadhe'ad suggests in his recent book on " State Regulation of Labour,". " employers should familiarise themselves with the awards under which' they are working, and adhere strictly to them."