ARBITRATION COURT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 30 September 1936, Page 6

ARBITRATION COURT

CONTENTIOUS ISSUE. RIGHT OF WITHDRAWAL. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 29. The contention that • arbitration was now compulsory once a dispute had been referred to the Arbitration Court was made in the Arbitration Court today by the employers when the workers sought to withdraw the bakers’ and pastrycooks’ dispute from the Court. The employers argued that the dispute coukl not be withdrawn under the law as it now stood, an alternative submission being that, if that were possible, the law should lie amended. The bakers’ and pastrycooks’ dispute was before three sittings of the Conciliation Council and both parties waited separately on the Minister of Labour (Hon. H. T. Armstrong) and the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Hon. D. G. Sullivan). The Minister of Industries and Commerce also attended a conference of both parties. The Conciliation Council having failed to reach a settlement, the dispute came before the Court to-day. The daily hours of work, on which there had been a misunderstanding, also were discussed. Mr E. J. Watson, secretary of the New Zealand Federated Bakers’ Association, asked leave to withdraw the case. Mr T. 0. Bishop, secretary of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, argued that the workers could not withdraw the case. The Court adjourned till to-morrow morning to allow the employers to decide whether the hours question only should he considered by the Court. Mr Justice Page said that, if the empl overs were unable to come to that decision, the Court would have to consider Mr Watson’s application for withdrawal, which was a legal question not without difficulties, and the Court would not he able to give a decision immediately.