INDUSTRIAL COURT

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 89, 13 October 1915, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL COURT

EMPLOYERS' REPRESENTATIVES Considerable interest attached to a portion of the debate on the Appropriation Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday, owing to remarks made by members regarding the position of representatives of employers on the Arbitration Court. Mr. A. H. Hindmarsh criticised the employers for the attacks they had made in the past on the Arbitration Court. The Employers' Association had attempted to discredit the Judge. He contended that the employers had made an attempt to drive the employers' representative (Mr. Duthie) off the Court because the Court had given an award favourable to the employees. Mr. L. M. Isitt urged that the Government should pass legislation providing that no representative on the Arbitration Court should receive payment from any other body than the Government. Mr. T. M. Wilford contended that the method by which the Arbitration Court arrived at its decisions was wrong. He advocated a new system whereby there would be a Commissioner representing each trade, and the allied trades, the assessors to be a representative of the employees and a representative of the employers in the industry affected. This systeun, he thought, would only require four or five Commissioners, and the Court as comprised would always have an expert knowledge of the industry in which the dispute had arisen. Mr. H. G. Ell said that Mr. Hindmarsh's charges were of sufficient importance to engage the immediate attention of the Prime Minister. Mr. P. C. Webb said that the employers had their side of the case to consider, but even if they had put their, man "in a bag" he hoped the employees would never consent to such tactics. i Mr. Wilford : What do you mean by putting their man in a bag? Giving him the sack? (Laughter.) UNION SECRETARY'S ALLEGATIONS Proposing "iLabour and the War," at the Tramwaymen's "social" on Monday night, Mr. E. J. Carey, secretary of the Hotelworkers' Union,, referred with pride to the part which Labour was taking in the great work of the Army and Navy. There were other things, however, of which Labour was not proud — that it despised, disdained, and complained of in these times.' Labour complained of that section of the people who stayed at home and spent their time in making profits out of the distress of the nation, while ,the workers were fighting in the trenches. There were those who were exploiting them in food stuffs and prices, and he asked that the National Government should remember Labour's demands for justice in this matter. There were others in this very country, he alleged, who were opposing Unionism, and who, while urging recruiting, were ready to fight, and take advantage of the workers in their absence at the front. He' referred, he said, to that section of the employers who pretended to believe in arbitration, and yei> who were engaged now in an effort to block arbitration and intimidate the Court. When the war broke out, and Mr. Justice Stringer made the wellintentioned suggestion, that Labour should take time to take stock of the position, Labour accepted the suggestion, but when., some months after, it was found that some people were ready to take advantage of the workers and force up food prices, Labour appealed 'to the Court for a reopening and won on the logic and reason of its case. After the opening of the Court, they won in arbitration, many of the cases stated, but the employers load tried to deny and defeat the reason and justice of the workers' cases. When the section referred to found 'that they could not stop Labour winning in the Court, Mr. Carey continued, they blamed the employers' representative on the Court, Mr Duthie, and were now engaged in an effort to hound him out of his position. They have gone as far, he submitted, as to attempt to intimidate the Court by writing scathing letters on the judgment of the Court — 'letters for which the President of the Court had found occasion to warn Mr. Pryor as to the consequences of the statements made in those letters. Mr. Carey wanted the workers and public to know, he said, that a proposal had been made that Mr. Duthie should get ill for two months in order to make room for Mr. Pryor on the Court. Mr. Carey asked the Minister of Defence, who was present, to see to it that a check was put on the American methods that were being used to defeat the success of Arbitration in this country,, and to deny justice to workers. Since the proposal that Mr. Pryor should go on , the Court, however, and because of the letter referred to, and the castigation given that gentleman by the Court, that scheme had not been gone on with, but still the effort to remove Mr. Duthie had been persisted in. The proposal was now that Mr. Scott should replace Mr. Duthie, and, as an inducement for him to do so, it was proposed that Mr. Scott be subsidised by another £350 per year in. addition to the £500 the Government paid the employers' representative on the Court. "The people who pay the money, call the tune," said Mr. Carey, and he asked that the National Ministry should stop the thing, in order to ensure the success of the Arbitration system and justice for the workers in the Court of Arbitration. EMPLOYERS' STATEMENT The president of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, when seen as to above, stated that undoubtedly some recent decisions of the Arbitration Court had caused great concern to some of the industrial unions of employers, who had voted only last year for Mr. Duthie as employers' representative on the Arbitration Court. The Federation had felt it its duty to acquaint Mr. Duthie frankly with this fact. Mr. Duthie had subsequently forwarded a letter to the Otago Employers' Association intimatinghis intention of resigning his position. This came before the annual meeting of the Federation, at which delegates were present from all parts of the Dominion, when it was agreed unanimously to accept his suggestion. So far as the president knows, his resignation is now on its way. It is hoped that Mr. William Scott, of Dunedin, the employers' late representati-"? on the Court, will receive the unanimous nomination of the various industrial unions of employers, as his intimate knowledge of the past history of the Court and its various awards must be of the greatest assistance to the Dominion.