EMPLOYERS’ OBLIGATION

Evening Star, Issue 23728, 8 November 1940, Page 9

EMPLOYERS’ OBLIGATION

REINSTATEMENT OF DISCHARGED SOLDIERS NEW REGULATIONS [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, November 7. Several important changes are contained in the occupational re-ostablish-mont emergency regulations, 1940, which were gazetted to-night. The regulations replace those of a similar nature framed last year. The previous regulations required an employer by whom a person was employed when ho was accepted for service with the armed forces to reinstate that employee on discharge or during any period of leave without pay. The new regulations place the obligation of reinstatement on the employer by whom the worker was employed immediately priof to his offering himself or to his being called up. The obligation applies only to employees who have been employed for at least four weeks immediately prior to their volunteering or being called up. Such workers on their reinstatement must bo retained for at least six months unless dismissed for a reason not connected with this obligation. The previous regulations made it an offence to dismiss any employee for the purpose of evading or attempting to evade the obligation under the regulations, or in expectancy that an employee would bo accepted for service with the armed forces. This provision is now extended to cover the ease of an employer dismissing a worker after he has been accepted, hut before he actually takes up his duties with the forces. The new regulations also provide that where more than one worker is eligible for reinstatement the order of priority shall bo the order in which they were released; but as an employer will now be required to retain any reinstated person for not less than six months, it is provided that when one such person is reinstated the right of his succesors to reinstatement forthwith lapses. Provision is also made that where an employee other than an apprentice is called for Territorial training, as distinct from military service, the period of such training up to a maximum of six months in any year is to be regarded as time served under his contract of service in civil employment for the purposes of increments and annual holidays, but during any period of absence from employment during training the parties are relieved of their obligations relating to the payment of remunerations, the performance of work, etc. These regulations do not apply to contracts of apprenticeship, which have already been dealt with under the suspensions of annrenticeship emergency ■ cgulations, 1939.