PENALTY OF £1

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 83, 8 April 1938, Page 12

PENALTY OF £1

BREACH OF AWARD

WATERFRONT WORK

A penalty of £1 was entered against J. A. Dooley, a waterside worker, in a judgment delivered in the Magistrate's Court today by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., as the outcome of proceedings taken by the New Zealand Waterside Employers' Association. The plaintiff association commenced proceedings against 75 members of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union, claiming penalties from each of them for a breach of the award, the alleged breach being the failure of the men to work overtime on the Port. Campbell on January 25 last. The case, against the defendant Dooley only, was proceeded with, and the others remain to be heard.

"Summed up, the position is this," said Mr. Luxford. "The men, including Dooley, intimated that they would not carry on if the crew continued to work No. 1 hatch. McLeod (in charge of. loading operations on behalf of Gannaway and Co.) said the crew would continue, and thereupon dismissed the men. The men's intimation was unequivocable, and McLeod was justified in treating it as a refusal to work. I come to the same conclusion, and hold that a breach of the award was committed. It must be understood that this finding is binding on Dooley onlyf and that any one of the other 74 defendants in the pending actions may lead evidence to prove that he did not in fact refuse to work."

It was not suggested that the breach I was trivial, said Mr. Luxford, but two1 specific grounds were advanced in support of the proposition that it was excusable; first, the employer.was wrong in ordering No. 1 gang to work during the tea hour, as this gatng had already been ordered to work between 6 p.m. and midnight; secondly, the employer committed a breach of the award by engaging members ■of the crew of the Port Campbell to work No. 1 hatch.

TWO CONCLUSIONS,

'It is difficult for me to express an opinion as to. whether Gannaway and Co., Ltd., committed a breach of clause 50 (a) or not," said Mr. Luxford. "The company is not before the Court, and is entitled to be heard before it is condemned. That is impossible in the present proceedings. Yet I am bound in fairness to the defendant to state that on the facts elicited in the present case I must come to two conclusions. First, if the employer had not unlawfully dismissed No. 1 gang there would have been union men available to work No. 1 hatch until midnight; secondly, the men in Nos. 2, 3, and 4 gangs might possibly have completed their work and No. 1 hatch as well."

Various aspects of the case were discussed in the judgment.

The question of costs was reserved,