EX-STRIKERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 74, 28 March 1914, Page 6

EX-STRIKERS

SEEKING AX AWARD IN AUCK4 LAND. DECISION RESERVED. m (IT TSLIORWH— PJIESS ASSOCIATION.} AUCKLAND, 27th March. The Arbitiat;on Court was crowded with interested watersiders this morning when an application for an award was made by the Cargo Workers' Union. This union was formed principally of exstrikers who were refused admission to the new Arbitrationist Union of Watersiders. , Mr. Charles Grosvenor, who appeared for the employers, submitted that in the case of at least forty of the parties cited the Court would have no jurisdiction at all, inasmuch as the employers in question were already bound by an industrial agreement entered into with the Waterside Workers' Union — another union than the applicant onion. His Honour asked Mr. Way how he proposed to get over this difficulty. Mr. Way : I will get over the difficulty, bir, by demonstrating to the Court that this industrial agreement is invalid. Mr. Way went on to contend that the agreement with the employers was not in accordance with the union's own rules. The agreement 'had been entered into by a small minority of the members of the union without being submitted to or endorsed by the majority of members at a properly constituted meeting, and in accordance with the union's own rules. ,He submitted, in support of his contention, a detailed criticism of 'the- terms of agreement, and several instances of previous rulings of the Court which he suggested ..went to show that the method of reaching the present agreement had been irregular. The Court, while reserving judgment on a legal question as to whether Mr. Way was entitled to 'impugn the validity of an agreement entered into by another body, decided to take . evidence on the facts t-o ascertain whether he could sustain Iris charge that the agreement had been entered into contrary to the rules of the union.