NON-UNIONIST WORKER

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 13

NON-UNIONIST WORKER

CLAIM AGAINST BUILDER FAILS [Per United Press Association.] NELSON, January 29. Reserved judgment for the defendant was given in the Magistrate’s Court to-day in a case in which the Carpenters’ Union claimed £IOO from H. 11. Beatson, a builder, on account of the employment of a non-union worker whom the defendant refused to dismiss. Mr T. E. Maunsell, S.M., said that there was one word in the clause of the Act which the union had overlooked. That was the word “ equally.” The notice referred to men who were “fully” qualified. There might be men who were fully qualified but who were not equally qualified. The test under the award was a matter of comparison. The secretary of the union admitted that he knew nothing of the non-unionist’s qualifications. He therefore could make no comparison. It had been laid down that the union must present the member for whom it sought employment to the employer with a request that he be examined with a view to his qualifications being ascertained. If the employer refused to make a test the liability was on the union to prove that its man was equally qualified. The union had not the power peremptorily to demand the dismissal of a non-unionist in favour of a unionist without prior investigation into the comparative qualifications of the two men