FIRST SITTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 22810, 19 November 1937, Page 3

FIRST SITTINGS

BIG AUCKLAND LIST [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, November 18. The newly-constituted Arbitration Court is expected to commence its duties early next week by a sitting in Auckland. The present court, comprising Mr Justice O’Regan, Mr W. Cecil Prime (the employers’ member), Mu A. L. Monteith (the workers’ member), will go into recess to overtake the vast accumulation of work, the personnel of the court remaining in Auckland. Fixtures have already been made for industrial disputes to be heard by the court next week, and the change-over in courts will not necessitate any alteration of these arrangements. The new court will merely take over and replace the present members, commencing with the hearing set down for the day on which the change is made.

The arrears of work to be overtajken by the present court are of sufficient magnitude to keep the members fully occupied until the Christmas holidays. A total of 17 industrial disputes and eight miscellaneous matters have been heard, and the court is thus faced with the task of issuing 17 awards and eight other decisions. In spite of the creation of a new court, the present body will not have an unbroken period in which to deal with accumulated matters. The list of fixtures for hearing in the near future in Auckland includes several matters that have already been partly heard by the present court and others which, for ■various reasons, the same court will have to hear. It is. therefore, likely that the' court will sit on odd days when its services are specially reouired. So busv is the Arbitration Court at present that it has been sitting outside the ordinary court hours. This week it sat until 6.30 o’clock on Tuesday and’ Wednesday, and did not rise until 10.15 o’clock to-night at the conclusion of the Dominion dairy workers’ dispute. In addition, the court will sit on Saturday. The members have been obliged to devote week-ends to the_ preparation of awards and other decisions..