COMPANY CONVICTED

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 298, 13 September 1941, Page 12

COMPANY CONVICTED

Non-Payment For Time Lost Through Sickness MAGISTRATE’S RULING (By Telegraph-—Press Association.) WAIHI, September 12. Much of importance to goldmining companies and employees and perhaps many others, attaches to a reserved decision given by Mr. Freeman, S.M., ip the Magistrates’ Court, in a case in which he found in favour of the Inspector of Awards in Tauranga, L. Goodacre. He claimed a penalty from the Martha Gold Mining Co. (Walhi), Ltd., alleging breaches of the Northern and Westland Gold Mines Employees’ Award, in that two men employed in the company’s refinery had tint been paid for time lost through sickness. One man was absent eight days and the other five days, and it was claimed that their wage was a weekly one and indivisible. The award is virtually a pominiou one and the facts were admitted. The magistrate*said the evidence showed that before the present award came into force the company had made up the difference between the amount received from a sick and accident fund subsidized by the company and the actual weekly wage. The term in in the award, •'minimum weekly wage,” showed that they were to be paid that wage irrespective of whether (hey worked a full week or uot. The indivisibility of the weekly wage was a well-established principle ot industrial law and could be modified only where the award expressly permitted deductions to be made. In this case a claim to sick benefit was not it claim against the employer .but against the society, and was not inconsistent with a claim against the employer. A sickness fund was a kind of insurance, and the fact that membership was compulsory and that the employer subsidized workers’ contributions did not affect the position. A penalty of £5 with costs was Imposed. At the hearing Mr. F. L, G. West, Auckland, appeared for the company. __________