CHAIN STORES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1935, Page 4

CHAIN STORES

MANAGERS AND ASSISTANTS

The Arbitration Court yesterday continued its hearing of.argument in regard to the terms of the proposed new grocers' award for Canterbury. Mr. Justice Page presided, and associated with him on the Bench were Messrs.. A. L. Monteith (employees' assessor), and Mr. W. Cecil Prime (employers' assessor).

After hearing submissions by Mr. A. W. Croskery, on behalf of the Canterbury Grocers' Assistants' Union, and by Mr. "W. J. Mountjoy, for the Canterbury Master Grocers, Mr. R. A. Young, solicitor, Christchurch, stated the case on behalf of the Canterbury Chain Store Grocery Managers' Union.

The Grocers' Assistants' Union, said Mr. Young, had filed counter proposals which in effect brought to a head a question long in dispute as to whether branch managers should be included in any industrial agreement or award between the parties. It was contended on behalf of the employers, that branch managers were working with some of their members under an agreement provided for in section 8 of the Labour Disputes Investigation Act, 1913, that there was no power enabling their inclusion in the proposed agreement or award, and even.if there was such power they should not under all the circumstances be included in it, and should be specially excluded from it. It was contended on behalf of the Grocers' Assistants' Union that the agreement was invalid for the reason that when it was entered into the parties were already bound by an existing award. Branch managers, said Mr. Young, were bona fide managers who employed and dismissed shop assistants and grocers' assistants. This was recognised by the Arbitration- Court when it ordered, on appeal, the registration of the Christchurch Chain Store Grocery Managers' Union. The Supreme Court also recognised this modern development in the judgment of Mr. Justice Ostler in the Canterbury Grocers' Assistants' Union v. Ritchie. It was felt that until the chain store system was fully understood and appreciated by some of the employers and by the assistants, it was not advisable to force the matter by contentions on matters •of law. Their inclusion in the award had not been, and never would be, satisfactory.

Mr. Mountjoy said the only question to be considered was whether the award of March 14, 1928, covered branch managers. He held that it did not.

In reply to questions, a branch store

manager at Christchurch said he was at liberty to buy any provisions he thought proper. He employed and dismissed members of the shop staff. He was in charge of the wages book. No member of the Self-Help organisation viewed the books of the shop except himself. . •'

The Court reserved judgment.