HOLIDAY PAY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 17, 14 October 1933, Page 16

HOLIDAY PAY

Tramways Agreement

INTERPRETATION SOUGHT

Decision was reserved iu the Arbitration Court yesterday when an application was held for interpretation of a provision in the city tramways agreement in respect to payment for annual leave of a number of tramway employees. Clause 7 of the agreement, which came into force on September 7, 1932, reduced wages by approximately 21 per cent. On August 27 twenty-two tramway employees commenced their annual 'leave of fourteen days under the terms of the expired agreement, and did not return to duty until some days after the agreement came into force. The continuity of the annual holiday was not broken. Six of the men were paid holiday pay in advance; the others were paid at the rates of the old agreement when they returned to duty. The court was asked to determine whether the twenty-two workers were entitled to holiday pay at the rates prescribed in the old agreement. Mr. C. Hobbs, representing the workers’ union, contended that the annual holidays had been earned at the time the men went on holiday, or before they went on holiday; and the same applied to the rates of pay payable during the holiday. , For the City Council, Mr. J. O’Shea maintained that the amount paid in advance was not a payment of wages, but an advance or loan. All the men should be treated equally, and should be-paid at the same rate. The difficulty, he said, had never arisen before because any alterations in pay were increases. If the court ruled that the six men were entitled to the higher pay, it would mean, it was urged, that similar higher pay would have to be paid to all the other employees.