EXEMPTION SOUGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 53, 30 August 1940, Page 9

EXEMPTION SOUGHT

GENERAL WAGE ORDER

Exemptions from the General Order increasing wages by 5 per cent, were sought in the Court of Arbitration today by various employers governed by the Tearooms Award, the applicants including golf clubs, men's and women's social clubs, theatre confectionery shops, etc.

Mr. H. J. Bishop appeared on behalf of the employers, and Mr. K. G. Archer (Hotel Workers' Union) for the workers.

Asking for exemption from the order, Mr. Bishop said that in the cases of golf clubs and theatre confectioners' shops, there was no competition with tearooms. In the case of golf clubs, most of them catered only for members, and were busy only at weekends. Some were not visited during the week at all. Members of the public were not admitted, but could bring- friends. Catering was done by employees who did other work and who in some cases engaged catering staffs at weekends. In the case of one theatre shop proprietor, attendance on the milk shake machine was confined to half an hour a day, or three hours of the 44 the employee worked. The emergency clause of the award was unsatisfactory because of a meal payment. Proceedings had already commenced for a Sweet Shops Award. Such premises offered no competition with tearooms. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. The right to exemption was universal, said Mr. Archer, but should be sought on individual grounds. Exemption was being sought for classes of people, and this could only be justified where the interests were identical. Most of the applicants were original parties to the award and their objections had already been made in conciliation councils. Many had applied for exemption and this had been refused. Tlie clubs applying must be governed by the award or there would be no need for exemption, except where caterers were concerned. Legal argument was put forward by Mr. Archer to prove that the parties seeking exemption were bound by the award to an extent which would preclude such exemption. He could not agree that only a trivial amount of refreshment business was being done by the applicants. Decision was reserved.