Pay Deducted When Work Was Slack

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 104, 4 May 1937, Page 5

Pay Deducted When Work Was Slack

LABOUR INSPECTOR'S PROSECUTION DISMISSED. Reserved judgment in an interesting test case was given by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The case was one in which the Manawatu Knitting Mills were prosecuted by the Inspector of Factories, Mr. Gordon Brown, on a charge of employing a person with over three years factory employment, during the week ending January 15, 1937, and failing to pay her not less than £2 a week. Announcing his judgment, tho Magistrate said: — “It is claimed that a breach of section 32 of the Factories Act, 1921-22, as amended by section 12 of the Amending Act, 1936, has been committed. The facts are not in dispute. The award wage of the employee was £2 5s a week, and she lost one day ’s employment not through any fault of her own but on her employer’s instruction on account of a temporary slackness in her department. As a result she had nine shillings, representing one day’s wages, deducted, bringing her wage for the week down to 365. it is claimed by the Department that it is penal under section 33 to reduce the wage below £2. No authority has been quoted, but it is contended this is the meaning of tho section. “In my opinion, however, the wording of the section is against such & construction lor tho concluding words of the sub-section (a) contemplate reductions by limiting tho reductions from the wages of men and women under the age or 18, to time lost through the worker’s illness or default, or on account of temporary closing of the factory. There is no other payment mentioned from which deductions may be made. 1 think, therefore, that all that the section does is to fix the minimum wage for a full week's work. This is a guide to employers or to.the Arbitration Court in fixing an award, on the analogy of the basic wage. The provision Goes not mean that tho worker is entitled to the minimum wage irrespective of the work done by such worker, but that the worker is to be paid for the work done at not less than the rates fixed by the section. This view is supported by the provisions of section 14 of the amending Act of 1936 providing for employment on certain holidays. ” The charge was dismissed and, as the case was in the nature of a test case, £3 3s costs were allowed defendant, for whom at the hearing Mr. G. I. McGregor appeared.