1931 WAGES RATES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 10

1931 WAGES RATES

Magistrate Decides Important Point

By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, November 12,

An important point has been decided by Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in an appeal from the assessment of 1931 rates of wages in respect of hat workers which was made by the Labour Department under section 17, sub-sec-tion (3) of the Finance Act. As the Inspector of Factories made an assessment of rates to be paid to workers in Auckland by a firm which in 1931 had no hat factory in Auckland. but possessed one in Dunedin, the inspector, in his assessment, took into consideration rates that were ruling in Auckland in 1931. In an appeal before the magistrate, Mr. Lisle Aiderton, on behalf of the employer, pointed out that the section required the inspector to fix the wages that would have been payable to an employee on March 31, 1931 “if on that date he had been employed by the same employer in performance of such services.” In the circumstances the inspector was not entitled to take into consideration rates that were paid by other employers. In the present ease the rates presumably would be related to those paid by the employer in its Dunedin factory. The magistrate referred the case back to the Labour Department for a fresh assessment.