"BREACHES OF AWARDS."

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1148, 8 June 1911, Page 6

"BREACHES OF AWARDS."

Sir,—ln vour issue of this morning you publish the fact that the following breaches of awards were taken against employers bv the Labour Department:— I.'Failing to pay an employee weekly. 2. Deducting from 'tho wages of an employee. What has the Minister of Labour to say to his Department now? Ho must admit that either the Department was wrong ill taking the cases yesterday or that what wo have contended all along is right, viz. —that the Department were not justified in refusing to take similar cases for us. It must also be remembered that the nbove cases were taken by us as test cases, the first after the Department and the then Minister of Labour had ruled that according to the Factories Act they would be helpless to secure a conviction. We were thou forced to take the coses to assert our rights. -The Minister, in commenting on these cases in the House last session, stated that they were twopennyhalfpenny eases—cases that would wipe out the Department if they were allowed. As stated to the Minister tho other day, we only want justice. If the Department refused lo lake these cases for us, why did they not refuse also in the present instance? Are these not also twopennyhalfpenny cases according to the Minister? A few more instances of the above nature and the public will understand why periodically a par' aupears in your paper, headed "A Lively Hour and a Half."—l am, etc., DAN MORIARTY, Secretary Wellington Furniture Union. June 7, 1011.