LEVY TO PAY TAXES

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1924, Page 6

LEVY TO PAY TAXES

UNION CANNOT RECOVER.

A judgment of widespread interest to the mining community was. delivered in the Whangarei Magistrate's Court last week by Mr R. W. Tate, S.M., in a case in which the Hikurangi Coal-miners’ Industrial Union, of yYorkers sought to recover from Albert Mee. the sum of 10/-, the amount of a levy struck by the plaintiff union on July 29, 1923. The judgment was as follows : —“The plaintiff is an industrial union, duly registered. The defendant was a member of the plaintiff union until his resignation of November 6, 1923, took effect. While, he was a member, on July 29, 1923, the union struck a levy of 10/-, and it was. admitted at the hearing that this levy was struck for the object of paying certain penalties which had been adjudged by this court to be paid by the union and by certain individual membejs of the union, for striking. “It was contended for the defendant that it was not competent for the"union to strike a levy on such an object, and that the object itself was unlawful- The power or authority of the union to strike a levy is contained in No 11 of its rules, which provides that it shall be competent for the union to strike a levy for ally one or more of the objects specified in rule 3. That rule contains eight paragraphs, seven of them setting out specific objects and the eighth setting out an object of general application. Rule 12 (iv.) also authorises a levy for the purpose of maintaining the bank account of £lOO, but as such a levy is made subject to rule 11, we come, back to the proposition that it is Competent for the union to strike a levy only for some one or more of the objects specified in rule 3. “The penalties for the payment of which the levy was struck were of two categories, the first being a penalty adjudged against the union itself under section 6 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1908, and the other being certain penalties adjudged against certain individual members of the union under the Labour Disputes Investigation Act, 1913. These penalties were paid by the union in one combined payment, and the levy was in connection with the whole sum.

“I do ot propose to discuss whether payment of the penalty against the union itself could be so brought within the objects in rule 3 as. to enable a levy in regard to it to be made, but assuming for the purpose of the case, that such a payment could be brought within rule 3, the plaintiff must still establish that payment of the individual penalties was lawful payment for the union to make : that is, that it was a payment for which a levy is authorised by rule 11 and rule. 3; otherwise, the whole levy is bad. Denniston coalminers arid Armitage was a case where a union made a levy of 2/6 per member, which levy, or part of it, was to be applied in liquidating a deficiency in the union funds caused in part by certain illegal payments. The effect of the decision is. that a levy is bad if made partly for an unlawful purpose, though also pai'tly for a lawful purpose, and it was held that the union could not recover. “The law as t.o what matters the objects of an industrial union may embrace is discussed in Ohinemuri Mines, etc., Union v. Registrar of Industrial Unions, but the question which I have to consider is not whether the payment of penalties adjudged to be paid by individual members of a union could be or should be, an object of an industrial union, but whether such a payment is in. fact one of the objects of this union for. which a levy may be struck. The objects set out in rule 3 are clearly expressed, and none, of them can be interpreted to mean that it is an object of the union to pay or discharge any penalty imposed on any person by a Court of Justice ; this being so, and as. rule 11 authorises levies only for the purposes of the objects in rule 3, I hold that the levy was an unlawful levy, and that the plaintiff union cannot recover.” Judgment was entered for the defendant, with costs,.