APPRENTICESHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 108, 7 May 1926, Page 8

APPRENTICESHIP

THE EMPLOYER'S OBLIGATION

ENSURING CONTINUITY OF EMPLOYMENT.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, 6th May. An important matter brought before the Arbitration Court iv Auckland was that dealing with the transfer of appren-. tices whose employers had not beer} able to discharge their obligations, and whom it was found impossible to-transfer owing to other employers having already their full quota of apprentices. The Court has now decided that the powers and discretions provided for in section 13 of the Apprentices Act may be exercised by the District Registrar and the Apprenticeship Committee, notwithstanding that the employer to ■whom it is proposed to transfer an apprentice has already his full quota as determined by order. In a memorandum the Court states that this order has been made in response to representations made to it by the District Registrar of Apprentices at Auckland. It appeared that a difficulty had ai-isen owing to a number of firms becoming insolvent and going out of business, leaving their apprentices unprovided for and without effective redress. Suitable employers were willing to employ them, but were prevented by individual proportion clauses from doing so. The present order was intended to meet such a position. It did not, of course, operate so as to increase the total number of apprentices in the district, but provided means of absorbing existing apprentices who would otherwise have no opportunity of completing their .raining. Following an application by the Apprenticeship Committee in the motor engineering industry, the Court has made an order calling upon every employer of an apprentice to the trade of motor mechaiiic within a radius of twelve miles of the Sei'don Memorial Technical College at Auckland to pay Is in respect o£ every apprentice employed by him in the trade between the date of the order and 31st December, 1925, and also in respect of every apprentice employed by him during 1926.