TRAVELLING TIME OF EMPLOYEES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 99, 20 January 1939, Page 6

TRAVELLING TIME OF EMPLOYEES

Case Against Builder

MAGISTRATE DISMISSES

INFORMATION

A reserved decision on a case heard on December 1 in which the Inspector of Awards proceeded against David Daily, Lower Hutt, builder, for alleged failure to pay travelling time to carpenters employed by him at Eastbourne, was delivered in the Magistrates’ Court, Lower Hutt, yesterday, by Mr. A. M. Goulding, S.M.. who held that no offence had been disclosed.

At the hearing of the case, Mr. J. R. Hanlon appeared for the Labour Department, and Mr. .E. F. Rothwell for defendant. The inspector produced evidence that four men were employed by defendant at Eastbourne and no travelling time had been paid. Th e evidence for the defence w’as to the effect that the men in question had been engaged on the job by a foreman employed for that purpose, and this was corroborated by a placement officer who gave evidence that the. men had been interviewed at the placement office and told by Daily that if they applied at Eastbourne they would prouably get work. The clause in the New Zealand Carpenters and Joiners Award provided that travelling time must be paid in respect of work done elsewhere than at the shop of the employer and more than two miles from the chief post office in the town in question, said the magistrate. The job on which the four men were employed was within four miles of the Post Office at Eastbourne which was a properly-consti-tuted borough. Defendant was a contracting builder who owned his own joinery factory at Lower Hutt, where he manufactured joinery for his various contracts. He sold joinery neither to other builders nor to the public. A highly-paid foreman had been engaged for the Eastbourne job, and he engaged all the labour required. One of the four men had been engaged by him and had been provided with transport which he regarded as a valuable concession and he neither asked nor expected to be paid for, travelling time. The other three went to the placement ottlce at Lower Hutt and as a result defendant interviewed them and they were told to apply at Eastbourne and they might get a job. Defendant had said that if they were engaged he would allow them 10/- a week for benzine and 5/- a week for oil for their car. He would not pay travelling time. The men had gone to Eastbourne and had been engaged. ’The inspector had contended that the words “shop of the employer” had no real bearing on the matter and that the real test was where the place to which the workmen had to go was in relation to the employer’s place of business. “I agree with the contention of defendant’s counsel that for the meaning of the word “shop” as used in clause four of the award, one is thrown back on the definition of that word in the Shops and Offices Act, 1921,” said the magistrate. “Clearly, defendant’s factory at Lower Hutt is not a shop within that definition.”

Where an employer carried out building contracts at different places and casual men were engaged at those places by him or on his behalf such men were not entitled to travelling time unless the work was more than two miles beyond the places specified in the award. The case before the Court fell within this finding.