SCOPE OF AWARD

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 159, 1 April 1938, Page 18

SCOPE OF AWARD

Objections To Inclusion Of Certain Employees GAS WORKERS’ DISPUTE Union officials of many other trades appeared iu the Court of Arbitration when it sat at Wellington yesterday for lite purpose of hearing evidence in the Dominion gas workers’ dispute. They included representatives of carpenters, clerical workers, engine-drivers, boilermakers, plasterers, biicklayers, plumbers and local boily officers, and they were present to object to the inclusion in the proposed award of any workers in their respective trade who might be occupied in connection witli the manufacture of gas. Mr. Justice O’Regau told them he would . hear them on Monday, when the actual hearing of the case was to take place. Only evidence was taken by the court yesterday.

As soon as the court opened Mr. F. D. Cornwell, of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, said that representatives of a number of organisations whose workers it was sought to include in the scope of the gas workers’ award wished to object. There were seven or eight such organisations, and each desired to make a statement concerning its own workers. He asked the court to bear them.

Mr. Justice O’Regan replied that the parties were still conferring and had agreed on a classification which, he thought, would satisfy the objectors. A number of them had been excluded. The parties had asked further time to confer, and the major hearing would take place next Monday, when any objections would be heard. Meantime evidence would be taken from witnesses who had come from a distance. Mr. J. Roberts, who appeared for the workers, said that it was correct that at the court’s request a classification had been prepared, for the first time in this country. Some of the parties would have no reason to object, having been excluded. The carpenters had been cut right out. The clerical workers were to be covered only where they were not protected by their own award. Some of them were doing half a dozen jobs, collecting and reading meters, and so on. The secretary of the New Zealand Clerical Workers’ Association, Mr. W. N. Pbarazyn, asked for an opportunityto be heard. He was not, he said, in agreement with what Mr. Roberts had said. ,

“Mr. Walsh looks as though he might have something to say,” said his Honour, seeing Mr. F. P. Walsh, of the Federated Seamen’s Union, standing at the back of the court.

“I assure you we are not trenching upon the preserves of tlie seamen’s union,” said Mr. Roberts. He assured Mr. H. Thompson, representing the New Zealand Plumbers and Gasfitters’ Union, that, plumbers were excluded from the classification.

.The hearing of evidence followed. Mr. T. O. Bishop appeared for the employers. Workers’ representatives who attended the court included Mr. R. J. Reardon (Auckland, Otago, Wellington, Nelson and Marlborough Engine-drivers’ Union), Mr. J. Moulton (New Zealand Carpenters’ Association), Mr. P. E. Warner (New Zealand Boilermakers’ Union), Mr. J. Weaver (New Zealand Plasterers’ Union), Mr. W. Roddick (New Zealand Bricklayers’ Union) and Mr. Renner (Wellington Local Bodies Officers’ Union).