TRANSPORT DRIVERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1938, Page 11

TRANSPORT DRIVERS

EMPLOYERS' CASE

EVIDENCE CONCLUDED

The hearing of evidence in support of the employers' case in the Dominion passenger transport drivers' dispute occupied yesterday afternoon and part of today in the Second Court of Arbitration. Mr.''Justice Hunter presided, and with him were Messrs. A. W, Croskery (employees' representative) and V. Duff (employers' representative) .

Mr. H.-J. Bishop appeared as advocate for the employers, and Mr. F. C. Allerby for the workers.

At the conclusion of the evidence, Mr. Bishop submitted that no case had been put up as far as service-car drivers were concerned, and that the union had not discharged its onus of proof that there was a change in conditions necessitating a recasting of the award.

Applications for exemption on behalf of the Wellington Free Ambulance, the St. John Ambulance, and various other ambulance organisations were granted.

Mr. Allerby said that the evidence had shown that the working of a shorter week, with fewer daily hours of work worked in a shorter daily span, was not impracticable. The only claim advanced against it was that it would involve a greater expense, and trlis argument had been brought forward when the reduction of hours was made by the Court in 1936. It had been the stock argument of the employers for years, but in spite of increases in pay and shorter working hours the employers still prospered.

The decision of the Court was reserved.