WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 10 December 1925, Page 7

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

A FA IJUM£AC!HJ KG MEASE KE

NMW SOUTH WALKS SCHEME. Employers in Sydney are viewing with disquiet some of the far-reaching clauses of the Labour Government’s Amending Compensation. Hill, which is now before the New. South Wales Parliament. They ate looking to the Legislative Council—and they will probably not look in vain—for amendments whidh will make the measure a little more equitable, and remove from it one or two provisions for what are really indefinable and unoalculable risks. If, for example, a worker is killed while journeying to or from his work, then his employer will be liable to pay corninjured, but not fatally, then lie will Again, any disease contracted by a be compensated. According to the Minister, although it is not expressly .stated in the biM, a worker must be proceeding directly to '• from ihis work, and not lingering ■'bout on the way, if he is to be compensated for any accident on such imirney, but it is argued that it may not. be a,t all easy to determine, if die dr.es meet with an accident, whether lie took the straight and direct path lo or from, his job. or whether he deviated from it. Again, the accident may possibly be due to the careless-

ness of the worker, but the employer will have to pay. On the face of it. although the provision is copied from other legislation, its critics say that it looks like stretching a iittle too far the principle of compensation. -Again, any dsease contracted try a worker in the course of bis employment is, in common with injuries, subject to compensation. This, it is stated, is reasonable enough if it can be determined definitely and beyond dispute that the disease was thus contracted, but assuming a man catches a cold and pneumonia develops. Who is to say that the cold was caught while the man was lait \work ? Or it might he typhoid fe.veig which can he contracted in a hundred different and unsuspected ways. To determine whether the illness was contracted in the course qf a man’s job will in not a few cases be iinpiiaeti cable. The attitude of the Opposition is that, in such circumstances of indefinable risks, the cases should be met, not under a hillisuch as this, but under a contributory national accident and sickness fund, ami that in some respects the bill is reducing to an absurdity the ordinary principles governing compensation, and placing upon employers an unjust burden. Compensation- has its economic as well as humanitarian aspect. The Opposition asks that both -aspects, and not merely the latter, sihfiuld be considered, especially when industry lias to bear the cost, in accordance with the fundamental principle of compensation.