PROCESS ENGRAVERS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 64, 9 December 1936, Page 7

PROCESS ENGRAVERS

May Not Be Members Of

Printers’ Union

Judgment was given by the Arbitration Court yesterday against the extension of the rules of the Wellington Printing and Related Trades Union to include process engravers. An application for permission to amend the rules, made to the registrar of industrial unions, was opposed by the Wellington Photo Engravers’ Guild, and an opinion was sought from the Arbitration Court.

The court, by a majority opinion, concluded that in view of the fact that photo process, engraving had formally years been treated in New Zealand as an industry distinct from and unrelated to the printing industry or the related industries; that its members had never been covered by an award or agreement governing the printing industry or the related industries; that its members had always managed their own affairs and desired, to continue to do so; that it had in the past had its own registered industrial unions; that it was already organised throughout the country, and had its own industrial guilds, both as to employers and as to workers; that it had entered into its own industrial agreements under the Labour Disputes Investigation Act, 1913, and had its own apprenticeship committees and its own apprenticeship orders; and that there was no evidence that a single photo process engraver was willing to join the applicant union, the application of the union to extend its membership rule to include photo process engravers should be refused.

The court mentioned that a few months ago the Auckland Printing Trades Union filed a similar application to extend its membership rule to include photo process engravers, but the application was withdrawn, the union intimating that it had no desire to include such members while they had a guild. Mr. A. L. Monteith, employees’ assessor, in a dissenting opinion, recalled that when the case for the 40-hour week in the printing industry was taken, it affected both the members of the printers’ union and process engravers alike, anil only one case was heard for the whole industry. In that case the court decided that the members of the union and process engravers could be heard together at the one hearing. "In my opinion, if process engraving is not related to the printing trade, then the members of one family are not related,” he said. "The fact that in America and Britain process engravers have separate craft organisations has no bearing, as in those countries there is no legislation such as the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which makes provision for workers in related industries to have one union.”