"STOP-WORK" MEETINGS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 129, 2 June 1928, Page 10

" STOP-WORK" MEETINGS

NOT ILLEGAL

IF AGREEMENT NOT FILED

' Tho Court of Arbitration has now fivcn its reserved judgment in the appeal of the Pukomiro Collieries, Ltd., against the decision of the Magistrate (Mr. Wyvern Wilson) at Hamilton, 1 who nonsuited the company in November last whcir it claimed two penalties of £100 each an account of loss and damage sustained by reason of "stopwork" meetings held by the Pukeiniro Miners' Union on the 27th and 29th days of June, 1927. At the hearing in the Lower Court it'was admitted that the defendant union had cancelled its registration as an industrial union under the Industrial Conciliation and .Arbitration Act, that it had subsequently become'one of the parties to a working agreement to which the company and other employers were also parties, that "stop-work" meetings-had been held as alleged, and that the said agreement had 3iot been filed pursuant to, the provisions of section S of the Labour Disputes Investigation. Act, 1913, the object of which was to bring unions who had become parties to "voi-^ untary agreements" under the jurisdiction ,of the Courts, thereby making such agreements enforceable in all respects as if they were industrial agreements. The appeal was argued at Auckland on the 9th May. In the course of a lengthy judgment reviewing the legal position, the Court of Arbitration upholds the view of the Magistrate, that the filing of an agreement is i essential to its enforcement, and hence that no offence can be committed by the holding of "stop-work" meetings, nor can there bo an unlawful strike, unless the agreement lias been filed with the Clerk of Awards pursuant to section S at the Act of 19KS. The Court, agrees that the Act was passed for tlio purpose of controlling unions who had soug'ljt .to escape the jurisdiction of the Courts, by cancelling their registration as industrial unions, but holds that tho Act has no application to .in agreement which has not been filed. Accordingly the appeal was dismissed, with costs, against the appellant company. Mr. P. J. O'Kegan appeared for the respondent .union, and Mr. Myers, K.C., with him Mr. Terry (Auckland) for'the appellant company.