EXTRA DAY'S PAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22901, 2 December 1937, Page 14

EXTRA DAY'S PAY

STATUTORY HOLIDAYS POSITION UNDER AWARD AN IMPORTANT DECISION DISMISSAL OF APPEAL A judgment delivered yesterday by Mr. Justice O'Bcgan in the Arbitration Court makes it obligatory for employers bound by the Northern (females only), Wellington, Canterbury, Otago and Southland- Clothing Trades Employees' award to pay their staffs for statutory holidays such as Boxing Day and New Year's Day if they happen to fall upon' a Saturday when normally no work is done. The judgment was delivered on an appeal from the decision of a Wellington magistrate, and is of importance to the clothing industry. Early this year Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., of Wellington, ruled that Cathie and Sons, Limited, clothing manufacturers, Wellington, had committed a breach of the award in refusing to pay an employee an ordinary day's wage for Boxing Day last year. The company made it clear that its factory observed the 40-hour five-day week from Mondays to Fridays inclusive, and that in any case the worker concerned Would not have worked on tho Saturday on which Boxing Day, 1936, fell. Moreover, tho employee was engaged on a weekly wage.

Provisions in the Act The company appealed against the decision, and the appeal was heard before the Arbitration Court at Auckland on November 19. Decision was then reserved. In the judgment delivered yesterday, His Honor said that section 14 of the Factories Amendment Act, 1936, made obligatory the payment of wages for each whole holiday at the same rate as for ordinary working days. It was provided also elsewhere in the Act that wages should b£ paid to all persons who had been employed in the factory, in the case of Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Now Year's Day, Good Friday or Easter Monday, at any time during the fortnight which ended on the day on which the holiday occurred. In addition, relating to any other holiday, payment should be made to any person employed at least four days during the week which ended on the day when the holiday occurred. Labour Day, Anzac Day and the King's Birthday wore quoted. No Ambiguity In Wording • His Honor said he was satisfied that neither in the relevant legislation nor in the award was there any ambiguity. If thero were no award in existence, it was clear that Boxing Day would have to be paid for by virtue of the provisions of the Factories Act and its amendments, and the award repeated in effect those provisions. Both the Act and the award were mandatory and workers were entitled to payment for any of the prescribed holidays, irrespective of the hours they worked in any week before the holiday. The appeal was dismissed. "Doubtless, this result was not within the contemplation of the legislature, or of the parties to the award," the judgment concluded. "The Court, however, is not free to deviate from the meaning of the language employed."