Tram Union’s Levy Admitted To Be Illegal

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 October 1948, Page 5

Tram Union’s Levy Admitted To Be Illegal

(P.A.) ’ DUNEDIN, This Day. Levies of £ 1 a member imposed by the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Tramway Employees’ Union on August 10, 1947, and January 21, 1948, “in recognition of the service of the national union in obtaining a new award,” were admitted by the branch to be illegal in a draft order submitted to Mr Justice Christie in the Supreme Court this morning. The case was one in which Gordon Anthony Bryant, a member of the branch, sought a declaration of the court on seven clauses in an originating summons.

The draft'Order had been consented to by the defendants —William' Benedict Richards, president of the branch and others— j said Mr C. L. Calvert, .who appeared for the plaintiff and asked for judgment in terms of’the order. Mr Justice Christie made an order as requested, the plaintiff’s costs (fixed at £2l) and the court fees to be paid by the defendants. It was also agreed by the defendants that a resolution passed at a meeting of the branch on May 23, 1948, authorising the payment of £25 out of the funds of the branch towards expenses in connection, with the strike of Public Works Department employees at Mangakino was ultra vires the rules of the union and that such a payment was illegal.

The matter of levies had first arisen in August of last year, Mr Calvert explained to the court. Delegates from Dunedin, who had been negotiating for a new award, returned to report to the branch at a meeting attended by about 80 of the membership of 360. Without previous notice a motion that a levy of £1 a member be imposed was carried, said Mr Calvert. The branch had no right to pass such a resolution and it was now agreed that it was improperly imposed. Four men refused to pay, of whom the plaintiff was one. “As a result of that, they were threatened with the penalties that appertain to unfinancial members — expulsion from the union and expulsion from their jobs.

“When the matter was further ventilated, some doubts began to creep in about the legality of the levy,” said Mr Calvert, who added that in January of this year an attempt was made to put the levy on a proper footing by holding a ballot. The proposal to impose the levy was carried with the condition that those who. had previously paid should not pay again. This again was a levy which the branch was not entitled to impose, said Mr Calvert. For the defendants, Mr J. B. Thomson said that the defects of the levies had been corrected. Under a new rule a further levy of £ 1 a member had been struck, against which the payments already made had been csredited. The decision of the court would be of purely historical importance, because a levy had now been imposed and imposed in a manner which the plaintiff conceded was regular.