MASTER AND APPRENTICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15747, 23 October 1914, Page 3

MASTER AND APPRENTICE.

RULINGS OF THE COURT. ALLOWANCE FOR OTHER WORK. Two cases stated for the opinion of the Arbitration Court by Mr. C. C. Kettle, S.M.. have now been decided. Both concerned apprentices in the engineering trade. The first case was in regard to an apprentice who, after having been in the employ of Cullen and Co., engineers, for some six months, became attached to the engineering firm of George Eraser and Sons as an apprentice for a term of five years. When joining his new employers he did not tell them of his previous experience, but some time afterwards mentioned the fact, and asked to be credited with the term served with his former employers. The Court held that on the facts the apprentice was not entitled to be credited, as against Fraser and Sons, with the term served with Cullen and Co. "To hold otherwise," the Court remarked, " would be to impose upon the youth's present employers' obligations, which mignt be much more onerous than those they had undertaken bv their contract with the apprentice. Even if tho defendants had known of the apprentice's prior service with Cullen and Co., both they and the apprentice might honestly have regarded that service as of no practical value in connection with the defendants' trade, and the Court sees no reason why, in that rase, the previous service might not be ignored." In conclusion, the judgment stated that, though thera was no legal obligation to do so, tho defendants might follow out the suggestion of the Machinery Department that the six months served with Cullen and Co. might bo counted as two months' apprenticeship. ACCIDENT TO APPRENTICE. BROKEN" BONE NOT SICKNESS. In the other case the Court was asked to decide whether or not an employer was justified in refusing to pay an apprentice his wages during his absence from work on account of a broken collarbone sustained as the result of a fall from his bicycle on his way to work. The Court ruled that the employer was justified in i his refusal. According to the award, no | deduction from wages was to be made | for time "lost through sickness," but the I Court ruled that sickness meant something in the nature of a malady or disease. Mr. M. G. McGregor appeared for the defendants in both cases.