CARPENTERS AND JOINERS' AWARD

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1925, Page 10

CARPENTERS AND JOINERS' AWARD

Judgment has been given by the -irbitration Court in regard to an application by the Canterbury Carpenters and Joiners' Industrial Union of Workers to have the Northern, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, and Southland Industrial Districts Carpenters and Joiners' award amended by granting to the applicant union equal preference with the other unions covered by the award. When the award was under 'Consideration the rules of the Canterbury Union did not conform to the conditions under which the Court grants preference, and preference was accordingly refused for the time being, but power was reserved to grant the benefits of preference on the union's rules beinT amended to comply . with the Court's requirements. The rules' had now been amended in certain particulars, and the Court had considered the effect of the amendments. The application for amendment of the award was opposed by the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. In the opinion of the Court, the amended rules were not framed in conformity with the requirements of the preference clause of the award, and the application was refused. The applicant union may apply again, on amending its rules by deleting all provisions that would render a member liable to a total cumulative payment of more than Is per week, and on deleting all provisions relating to benefit ' schemes. These schemes may be made the object of a voluntary society of workers, but they could not be made the subject of compulsory contribution to a union to which preference had baen accorded.