CORPORATION TRAM SHED

Evening Star, Issue 22773, 7 October 1937, Page 17

CORPORATION TRAM SHED

IS IT A FACTORY ? FULL COURT ASKED TO DECIDE [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, October 6. Whether the Wellington City Corporation tram shed at Kilbirnie is a factory within the meaning of the Factories Act was a question for consideration by the full court in an appeal being heard trom the decision of the magistrate, Mr Stilwell. An information was preferred by the respondent, Percy Henry Kinsman, inspector of factories under the Factories Act, against the appellant, the Wellington City Corporation, that on or before February 1, it being the occupier of a factory as defined by the Act, employed a workman as a tram car adjuster at its Kilbirnie tram sheds in a factory' in which work is regularly performed on Sunday, and failed to pay this workman double ordinary rate of pay for the time so worked. The corporation was convicted by the magistrate and ordered to pay costs, but no penalty was imposed, as the case was in the nature of a test.

ThC corporation contends that this decision is incorrect in law. Counsel for the appellant, Mr Oi H. Weston, stated to-day that the result of the 1936 amendment to the Factories Act was that workers in a factory in which work was regularly done on Sundays must he paid double rates of pay, and if the corporation’s car shed was held to be a factory, then the car cleaners and adjustors who worked the first hour of Sunday after midnight must be ipaid at double rate. The decision on this matter, . _ stated counsel, would affect other cities and boroughs in New Zealand, and also numerous transport concerns. The work carried out at the sheds was cleaning, minor adjustments and replacements, hilt anything in the nature of repairs was '.carried out in the corporation’s tram workshops, which were quite distinct from the tram sheds. It was not contended that the workshops were not factories, but these were separate establishments altogether. All cleaning and adjustment work was done in the tram sheds at night, whereas in the workshops the duties were performed during the day. Car sheds had been treated not as a factory by the parties concerned until tne 1936 amendment, when the question of wages arose in this connection.

The following three main submissions were put by Mr J. H. Taylor for the respondent : : 1. That the car shed in which the worker was employed was a place in which one or more persons were employed in preparing goods for trade. 2. The place 'where he was employed was one in which one or more persons were employed directly or indirectly in their handicraft. 3. That on the facts as found by the magistrate tram sheds were brought within the statutory definition of a factory. Judgment was reserved.