APPRENTICES ACT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 77, 27 September 1924, Page 10

APPRENTICES ACT

REPLY TO CRITICISM

STATEMENT BY ARBITRATION COURT.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) NAPIER, 26th September. When local applications for orders under the Apprentices Act were being dealt with in the Arbitration Court to-day, Mr. Justice Fiazer said the Court was pleased to see that Hawkes Bay had given a lead to some of the larger districts in this matter. Some criticism, he said, had recently been levelled at the Court by a prominent industrial organisation in which it was suggested that the Court had not discharged its duties in regard to apprentices in the manner contemplated by the Legislature. The organisation in question had evidently misread the Act, for the burden of its complaint was that the Court had not given a lead to the parties in the matter of apprentices, and had not observed rigid uniformity in its apprenticeship orders. Tha Act provided that the Court, before making any order, should give the parties interested an opportunity of stating their views, and should ako take into account any recommendations made by the Apprenticeship Committees. The Act spoke, all through, of industry and I locality, and clearly indicated that each district was to be consulted in regard to its own requirements. When the parties concerned in any industry in any particular _ locality agreed on the terms and conditions on which apprentices could bs employed, the duty of the Court was to be guided by the wishes of the persons- affected, unless their recommendations were not in accordance with the Act or contravened the general policy of the Court. The Court was desirous of attaining uniformity of conditions, and in its circulars to employers and workers had stressed the point. . It had also circulated a general draft of the apprenticeship order to be used by local committees when making their recommendations to the Court. More than that the Court could not do without exercising its statutory powers in an arbitrary manner, and without consideration for the wishes of the parties affected in the different localities. The only way by which Dominion uniformity could be attained was by Dominion organisations oi employers and workers arranging to confer on a Dominion basis and submitting Dominion recommendation to the Court. The Court had specially advertised in each district visited that it was desirous of hearing applications for orders, hut ,„ most cases' neither side ™S T dl t0 P£ >Ceed > or on]y °»c «de /arlv ly- 4 -The one «de that was >eady almost invariably was the workei. Whenever there was a possibility th ß ar iTT ,conferellce being held the Court had always deferred making ™-101l O11 61' 8- ,If there had bee» any apathy towards the Act, or :f there K«L « ar" y sldestePPing of responsibiJities the Court certainly did not accent the7 Camf (V^ P°si«on FuS the Court had, as far as possible, enlufft 0i t0 attain «n«ormity, ' but any \L hT W^° ha- d criticised « for Vy j £* nnlformity that now ob feif t£ egrf ng + ,tha future po-ibm-