PANTEYMAID'S DUTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20362, 17 September 1929, Page 7

PANTEYMAID'S DUTIES.

KITCHEN WORK DEFINED.

LABOUR DEPARTMENT'S APPEAL

ARBITRATION COURT DECISION. The appeal by the inspector of awards, Mr. G. F. Grieve, against a decision given in tho Magistrate's Court in favour of William F. Prior, restaurant keeper, which was heard in the Arbitration Court on September 2, was allowed by the Court, which, in its reserved decision, delivered yesterday, remitted the case to the Magistrate's Court with an intimation that a breach of tho award should have been recorded.

In claiming a penalty of £lO for an alleged breach of tho tearoom and restaurant workers' award in employing a worker as a kitchen hand and failing to pay her not less than the minimum rate of wages, the inspector contended that the washing of plates used in the dining room came within the definition of kitchen work and that therefore the worker was entitled to the pay of a kitchen hand. The defence was that the work in question was pantryrnaid's work. The magistrate, Mr. Wyvern Wilson, decided against the inspector, on the ground that it was the custom in restaurants for the pantrymaid to wash all dining room plates and tho award was not inconsistent with such a custom.

"Tho case was really taken as a test case and the decision is of importance because by the award the whole scale of wages in a kitchen depends on the number of employees in it," stated Mr. Justice Blair, delivering the judgment of tho Arbitration Court. "The magistrate found it proved that prior to the award and subsequently it was the custom in restaurants for all plates which came from the dining room to be washed by a pantrymaid. The only evidence on this point was as to the practice in Auckland. The award is, except for Southland, a Dominion award, and no evidence was tendered by the defence as to the custom in other places. "For the purpose of ascertaining whether or not an employee is to be deemed a kitchen hand the proper inquiry is whether he or she is doing one or other of the things which are defined as kitchen work for the purpose of the award. It may be that in the colloquial sense one or more of the activities specified may not be kitchen work. This, however, is not the point, because an artificial definition is given by the award. We mention this point because in the magistrate's judgment there is some Reference to the fact that the plate-washing, the subject matter of this case, was performed in the pantry. It is what is done, and not where it is done, which is the test provided by the award. "The employee in question admittedly washed all the dinner plates. The award specifically states that cleaning plates is kitchen work. We cannot escape the con- | elusion, therefore, that when it is admitted that an employee is engaged to wash and does wash dinner plates she is cleaning plates within the artificial definition of kitchen work in the award."