ARBITRATION COURT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 13, 17 January 1922, Page 4

ARBITRATION COURT

FAR-REACHING PROPOSALS

SELECTION OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Important proposals affecting the constitution of the Arbitration Court and the election of the representatives of employers and workers are made in the industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill introduced in the House of Representatives last night. The status of the Judge of the Arbitration, Court is altered by providing that he shall not be Judge of the Supreme Court and cancelling the authority of the Chief Justice to "appoint a temporary Judge. \ ■ The votes of a union in the selection of workers' representative on the Court remain at one fov each fifty members, but with a limit of three votes, and the special section under which the. A.S.R.S. has power to apply to the Court is altered to deprive the society of the right to vote for the election of workers' representative. ' '■'

New proposals, are made* as to the qualifications—of-assessors in industrial disputes. Under the present law it is possible for persons who have been engaged in an industry to appear as assessors, but it is now laid down that an assessor must be actually and bona fide engaged or employed either as an employer or a worker'in the industrial district and in the industry in which the dispute Has arisen.'An exception is made in disputes affecting women or giris by providing that the Commiesioner ■ may appoint as one of the assessors a resident of the industrial district who possessed a knowledge of the industry.

When a casual vacancy occurs in the office of a nominated member of the Court the Governor-General may appoint the acting nominated member to fill the office for the balance of the term, and may either leave the acting position vacant or may proceed to fill it in the sanie way as for the original appoirttment. Special power is given* to the Court to review awards with the consent of all

parties. \ . It is proposed that local authorities and public bodies shall be excluded from the operation of the Act in the same way as the Crown is excluded. It is made an offence to dissuade or attempt to dissuade any two or more workers from accepting work under (in award or agreement with a view to defeating, it. The penalty is a fine of £10 for a worker bound by the award or agreement and £50 for any. other person. Similarly an employer dissuading or attempting to dissuade two or more workers from, ijcceptiner work is liable to a fine of £50 if he k bound by the award or or £100 if he is not.

The Bill was read a second time and on the motion of the Minister of Labour (the !Hon. G. J. Anderson) was referred to the Labour Bills Committee.