VALIDITY QUERIED

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 17, 14 October 1933, Page 9

VALIDITY QUERIED

Apprenticeship Orders

WHEN NO AWARD EXISTS

Court Reserves Decision

The question whether, when an industrial award has been cancelled in a particular district, apprenticeship orders should also cease to operate was brought for decision before the Arbitration Court yesterday afternoon. After bearing argument from Mr. F. Cornwell on behalf of a number of unions, his Honour Mr. Justice Frazer reserved decision. Mr. Cornwell said it seemed strange that where an award had ceased to operate owing to the conditions offered by the employers to tlie workers being unacceptable, apprentices in that trade or industry should be deprived of the conditions and protection contained in their order.

The court, Mr. Cornwell suggested, had power to extend the provisions of apprenticeship orders to include employers not bound by an award or industrial agreement, and had exercised that power. The awards which had ceased to operate had done so in practically every case over the question of wages, which was not included in the reference to awards in apprenticeship orders. The conditions of employment, therefore, existing where awards bad ceased to operate were really the same as where they still functioned., so that the conditions of apprenticeship orders were not affected by the awards going out.

Mr. Cornwell argued 'further that the 'court had power to overcome any slight difficulty which might arise through any award ceasing to function in any particular district by extending

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the provisions of the apprenticeship order, in the industry concerned to the district where the award had ceased to operate. The Apprenticeship Act was not limited to any part of the country in its application. Some awards had now ceased to exist, but at no time bad there ceased to exist an award in some part of the country in those trades whose apprenticeship order was likely to be questioned. “This is a serious question so far as apprentices are concerned,” Mr. Cornwell said, “and I do not think the employers want to interfere with the orders.”. Mr. W. Cecil Prime, Employers’ Assessor: It might have been better to have let sleeping dogs lie. The employers are now following out the terms of the orders, but the question of their validity having been raised may upset that.

His Honour: It Is purely accidental if these orders are invalid. It was never intended by the Legislature. It is entirely a question of law, and it is far better to face the question now so that if the orders do prove invalid the position can be rectified. “This is a new suggestion of Mr. Cornwell’s,” his Honour continued, “asking that employers, say down in Southland, should be brought under an award simply because one exists, say, in Auckland.”

The question being an important one, his Honour intimated that he would take time to consider it.