WORK OF APPRENTICES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 304, 22 November 1932, Page 2

WORK OF APPRENTICES.

3.45 P.M. EDITION

NEW AMENDING BILL. Ptr Press Association. WELLINGTON, Nov. 22. By tlio Apprentices Bill, which was introduced into the House of Representatives this afternoon, the Arbitration Court is deprived of its powers of administration. Under the Act these are transferred mainly to an apprenticeship council. The Bill is a consolidation with amendments, as it is held that a merely amending Bill would leave the present legislation in a form very difficult to comprehend. The existing provisions have been arranged under the four main headings of administration, apprenticeship, contracts, employers and apprentices, and the general object of the Bill is to deprive the Arbitration Court of its general administration of the Act. This has been achieved by transferring to tho Minister of Labour the Court’s powers to appoint and discharge apprenticeship committees and to appoint district registrars to act where there is no committee. The Minister is also given the power of applying the operation of the Act to employers and apprentices, and exempting them from it. The apprenticeship council, which the Bill sets up, is composed of the Registrar of Apprentices, two employers’ representatives and two workers’ representatives. To them has been transferred the principal powers of the Arbitration Court for the making of apprenticeship orders, except the power requiring employers to employ apprentices. This latter provision has been dropped. The Court’s power of hearing and determining appeals also passes to the council, and the Court’s control oyer the functioning of committees and its power to make apprenticeship orders also pass to the council and apprenticeship committees respectively. The Registrar of Apprentices is given wider powers and full responsibility, and the council’s resolution can only be passed by a majority which includes the registrar. Tho only function left to the Arbitration Court is to fix the payments, if any, to be made to apprentices on the bankruptcy of an employer.