CLERICAL UNIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22686, 28 June 1937, Page 8

CLERICAL UNIONS

ARE THEY ID THEIR AWARDS VALID ? TEST APPEAL CtRCEDiS 28,C0S SLEEKS IS THEIR WORK AH INDUSTRY ? [Pen United Pkess Association.] WELLINGTON, Juno 28. A case raising the question of tne validity of all clerical unions registered in New Zealand, the membership oi which numbers about 20,000, is being considered io-day by the Appeal Court. The case is that of the Otago and Southland Stock and Station Agents Clerical Employees’ Trade Union and others (plaintiffs) v. _ the judge and members of the Arbitration Court, and tho Otago Clerical Workers’ Industrial Union, and the Registrar of Industrial Unions (defendants). It was removed from Dunedin by order of Mr Justice Kennedy into the Court of Appeal. The plaintiff union is a duly registered union under the Trades Union Act, 1908, its members comprising the employees in tho various stock and station agent companies in Otago and Southland, and in October, 1936, it entered into an industrial agreement with the employers. The other plaintiffs are the officers of the Otago Stock and Station Agents’ Employees’ Society, formed for like purposes as the plaintiff union, but when the society applied for registration as an industrial union tho application was refused onthe ground that the society could belong to the Otago Clerical Workers’ Union (tho defendant union), the regisration of which as an industrial union the plaintiffs allege was not lawful. Plaintiffs further contend that tho defendant union was granted an award bv the Arbitration Court which applied, not to an industry, but to all the clerical workers in the Otago portion of the industrial district. They claimed (a) that clerical work is not an industry within the meaning of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and that the defendant union is not a society or union within the meaning of the Act. (b) That as the union is not a union within the meaning of the Act, nor authorised to be registered, the above mentioned award is a nullity, and was made by the Arbitration Court without jurisdiction. (c) That the registrar unlawfully refused to register the above society, such refusal likewise being without jurisdiction. Addressing tbe court, Mr J. P. B Stevenson, for plaintiffs, stated that the whole question was whether clerical work is or is not an industry within tho meaning of the Act. Plaintiffs contended that clerical workers were employed in practically every industry in New Zealand, but that clerical work itself is not an industry-. Throughout New Zealand there had been registered what were known as the “ General Clerical Unions,” having as members clerks in every conceivable form of business and industry. The question for discussion was whether- those unions were valid, and whether the awards made by the court were valid awards.