Grocery Store Managers

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 268, 15 November 1934, Page 9

Grocery Store Managers

DISTINCT UNION WISHED Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 13. An appeal against tho refusal of the Registrar of Industrial Unions to register the Canterbury Chain Store Grocery Managers’ Guild as a union was heard in the Arbitration Court today. Mr, R. A. Young, who. represented the guild, said that early this year 45 grocery store managers formed a guild and applied for registration as an industrial union, but their application had been refused. He submitted that the section of the. Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act under which the application was dismissed was intended to prevent the • needless multi* pJicty. of industrial unions. It did not, however, mean that there should not be more than one union.- At’present the only .union in ■. tho trade was tho Grocery Assistant’s Union, to which -the managers would have to belong if they wished to become members of a union.

> Mr. Young said that the chain-store system had created a new class of employee, the managers of-the stores, and they could not properly be termed grocers’ assistants. The.power .of the managers was almost absolute and while they wore workers they were also employers. The relation of the manager to his assistant was that of master and ; servant. ;

The-appeal was opposed by Mr. A. W. •Croßkerjr for the Grocers’, Assistants Union. *He said that an agreement had : . been signed in the office of the Canterbury'Employers’ Association and the-branch , managers, 1 a,- body-of men with no 'industrial knowledge, had been ’.led like lambs cto the. .slaughter. He did'not admit the need for a separate agreement. It. did not give to 'Christdhurck branch managers a portion of tho privileges -they onjoyed in Wellington and Auckland under the Grocers’ Assistants’ award. Decision was reserved.