ILLEGAL EXPULSION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 223, 3 September 1936, Page 7

ILLEGAL EXPULSION

Waterside Workers’ Claim

for Damages

UNION TO PAY (By Telegraph—Frees Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 3. lu a reserved judgment in a case heard at the recent sessions of the Supreme Court at New Plymouth in which three members of the New Plymouth Waterside Workers’ Union each sued the union for £l5O as damages for loss of employment through then illegal expulsion from the union. Mr Justice Ostler has awarded to each plaintiff the amount which he considers he might have earned in tho 14 w»eks concerned, from which is to be deducted the amount each man received as sustenance during the period in which he was deprived of work through the union’s action.

The judge estimates that the average amount which they would have earned at £4 per week for the period, and gives judgment for £56 to each man. The deduction on account of sustenance payments leave the awards to the three men as follows:—John Evans, £56 less £IS 7/-, net amount £37 3/-; James McKay, £56 less £2l 9/-, net £34 11/-; Thomas Gordon Graham, £56 less £26 13/-, net £29 7/-. Judgments were entered for plaintiffs accordingly with costs according to scale as on claims for £lOO, witnesses’ expenses and disbursements. As all the claims were heard together only one set of costs for the trial was allowed, but his Honour certified for £7 7/- for the second day of the trial.

Plaintiffs were also given a declaration and an injunction for their wrongful expulsion from the union, which was admitted, and the trial was as to the amount of damage suffered. The defence was that the failure of plaintiffs to get work was not the effect of their expulsion from the union, but through, the decision of the employers not to give these particular men any further work.