THE ARBITRATION LAW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 10

THE ARBITRATION LAW.

The latest development. of Parliamentary delegation of its legislative functions appears in the bill presented by the Minister of Labour, which purports to extend the definition of "industrial matters" under the Arbitration Act. A liberal extension is proposed, for the bill says "the term 'industrial matters' shall include any matter that is not within the meaning of that term" as defined in the principal Act, if the parties to the dispute agree so to regard it and the Court decides it is relevant to the dispute. It is difficult to imagine a more slovenly piece of legislation. Evidently it is 100 difficult or too much trouble for the Government and its advisers to draft a sufficiently comprehensive definition of "industrial matters." They therefore propose that unlimited power to extend the existing definition shall be vested in conciliation councils, without the slightest safeguard against their incompetence to discharge legislative functions. The bill goes further than that extraordinary proposal, for there is a supplementary clause sanctioning all provisions in existing awards "that are not industrial matters within the meaning of the principal Act" unless dissent by any of the parties was formally recorded. A complete illustration of Ihe significance of this retrospective legislation is to be found in a judgment of the Court of Appeal a few months ago upon clauses recommended for inclusion in an award by a conciliation council. Their effect was mainly to prescribe preference of employment for financial members of the union and to require that the employment of non-unionists should be conditional upon their becoming members of the union. The Court held that since employers have neither legal authority nor practicable means to investigate the financial relationship of an employee to a union, the clauses were not within the statutory definition of industrial matters. Mr. Smith's bill docs not propose to override the Appeal Court's judgment in the case, but, if it is passed, it will be impossible to challenge any similarly illegal provisions in existing awards, and any casual selection of laymen, appointed as assessors in a conciliation council, will be invested with all the majesty of Parliament itself, for they will bo empowered to lay down rules against which no appeal may be made to any tribunal competent to interpret the law,