INDUSTRIAL LAWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 130, 3 June 1936, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL LAWS

RECENT AMENDMENTS FEATURES EXPLAINED • The new industrial legislation of the Labour Government was one of the chief matters considered by Mr. I. D. Campbell, LL.M., last Friday evening in the second lecture of his short course on "Law and the Layman," given under the auspices of the Workers' Educational Association in the Trades Hall. Mr. Campbell's subject was "Social and Industrial Law," and in the course of his address he stated that no society could properly be described as modern or humane unless its legal and economic system ensured to each member not .only freedom from unjust restraint, but also the means to live the life of a human being. In our own industrial age the provision of many social services was an accepted part of the legislative programme of every government. There were various kinds of pensions and other forms of direct assistance, and, in addition, a great array of iegal restrictions intended to regulate the conditions of labour and to ensure some measure of general protection for the workers.

The speaker recalled the early factory reforms at the close of the industrial revolution—reforms which had been extended and developed, and had their counterpart in almost every industrial country today. New Zealand legislation on the questions of wages, hours, employment of women and children, and the prevention of accidents was then outlined, and the Factories Act, with its recent amendment, was dealt with in detail. A summary was given of the provisions of other important sections of the industrial law of the country, and apprenticeship, inspection of machinery, and safeguards for the health of workers were discussed, and the main clauses of the Workers Compensation Act reviewed.

Finally the lecturer surveyed the law relating to the organisation of workers and employers, and described the main features of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and the changes made in that Act in 1932 and 1936. The various kinds of unions, compulsory unionism, and preference to unionists were dealt with, and the machinery for the negotiation of mass labour contracts under the I.C. and A. Act and the Labour Disputes Investigation Act was also explained. .The lecture concluded with a statement of the law on direct action in industrial disputes—strikes and lock-outs—indi-cating the conditions under which action was lawful, and the penalties