LABOUR AGREEMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18455, 19 July 1923, Page 11

LABOUR AGREEMENTS.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO COURT

POWER TO MAKE ALTERATIONS.

The cJ.titude of the Arbitration Court toward recommendations forwarded to it by conciliation councils was explained yesterday by the president of the Court, Mr. Justice Frazer, when the Court met to commence its Auckland sittings.

His Honor said the question had been raised in a number of cases regarding recommendations arrived at in conciliation council, and there seemed to be an impression among some people that these recommendations were in every detail sacred and binding and could not be altered, and that if the Court did alter them it was doing something that it should not do. Some took the contrary view that because the Act stated that they were not binding unless agreed to by the parties concerned the Court was at full liberty to do as it liked without taking any evidence. The Court had therefore decided to take the first opportunity of making clear its view of the matter. In making a pronouncement on behalf of the Court, Mr. Justice Frazer said:— " The Court does not view recommendations as unalterable. It fully recognises that they are not binding, but the Court does not wish to imperil the usefulness of conciliation councils by lightly disregarding their recommendations. The Court cannot, be satisfied with a mere statement (by an _ agent that the assessors had made a mistake, merely because they agreed -to something which the Court would not ordinarily grant. The Court is aware that bargaining takes place at meetings of conciliation councils, and for that reason it must be absolutely satisfied that a genuine mistake has been made, and that the clause objected to was not t inserted as a quid pro quo for something conceded by the opposite party. If, however, the recommendations are selfcontradictory or ambiguous, or are ultra vires, the Court deals with them in its own discretion as.it thinks proper." His Honor added that he thought that was in accordance with the intention of the Act. The conciliation councils should settle disputes as far as they could, and although the recommendations were not in law binding, yet they should carry a good deal of weight as being the considered opinion of a body of experts at a round table conference, who arrived at what they thought was a fair settlement of certain of the points at issue. The Court would be tampering very seriously with the usefulness of the conciliation councils if the idea became general that the recommendations could be treated as so many scraps of paper. That was why the Court did not depart from the recommendations unless there was a very good reason for doing so. If satisfied that a genuine mistake had been made the Court would cot hesitate.