PHOTO-ENGRAVERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 106, 6 May 1936, Page 13

PHOTO-ENGRAVERS

APPRENTICESHIP ORDER

In the Arbitration Court today, Mr. E. W. Clarkson, on behalf of the Wellington Photo-engraving Trade Apprenticeship Committee, applied for an apprenticeship order in the photo-en-graving trade in the. Wellington industrial district.

Mr. K. M. Baxter, on behalf of the Wellington Printing and Related Trades' Union of Workers, opposed the application.

Mr. Clarkson said the only question at issue was whether the apprentices in the photo-engraving industry were covered by the printing trade apprenticeship order. If they were, the application must fail; if not, •it was submitted that the proposed order should be made. It was submitted that the printing trade awards did not apply to photo-engravers. No serious attempt had ever previously been made to establish the proposition that photo-en-graving was a branch of the printing trade. The employers and the employees in the photo-engraving industry, and the Department of Labour were agreed that photo-engravers aid not come under the printing trade award. For that reason, the parties had registered an agreement under the Labour Disputes Investigation Act, and the apprenticeship order was the necessary complement to that agreement

Mr. Baxter said he hoped the Court would not agree to grant separate orders. It was the opinion of the union that the Court could not do otherwise than refuse the application for the separate apprenticeship order in face of the fact that the rules of the union already provided for these workers. The evidence produced showed that they were members. The evidence also showed that process engravers apprenticeship contracts had been under the jurisdiction of the printing trades apprenticeship committees originally set up under the Act. The printing trade workers, said Mr. Baxter, were watching to see the results of the efforts of the employers to split up the printing trade workers into sections. If the employers were successful the desire and aim of bringing about satisfactory wage agreements in the future were not going to be assisted but would be considerably retarded.

In reply, Mr. Clarkson emphasised the admission by Mr. Baxter that' no union had bothered about the interests of those workers until 1934; and he said that although the rules of the Wellington Printing and Related Trades' Union were revised in 1934, they contained no specific reference to photo-engravers. Mr. Clarkson refuted the suggestion that photo-en-gravers could be embraced in any branch of the printing trade. The industry was quite separate, and was treated as such in all other countries!

Mr. Justice Page said the Court was desirous of visiting a photo-engraving establishment to see for itself the various operations of the industry. The Court reserved its decision.