LINESMEN'S PAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22948, 28 January 1938, Page 14

LINESMEN'S PAY

THAMES POWER BOARD INTERPRETATION OF AWARD UNDER-PAYMENT ALLEGED [by telegraph—own correspondent] TE AROHA. Thursday The wages paid to linesmen nnrl linesmen's assistants by the Thames Valley Electric-Power Board were the subject of a case in which Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., gave reserved judgment in the Magistrate's Court this afternoon. Plaintiff was the Auckland Electrical Workers' Industrial Union of Workers and defendant was the Thames Valley Electric-Power Board. The union, which brought the case to determine the interpretation of section 21, sub-section 3, of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, alleged that the board was underpaying its linesmen and linesmen's assistants. The award of 1030 fixed the maximum week's work as 46 hours, and this was amended to 40 by an order of the Court, dated September 7, 1036. The section of the Act provides for the proportionate increase of hourly rates of pay when weekly hours of work are decreased, so that workers whoso hours are reduced do not lose wages thereby. Union's Case The union submitted that notwithstanding the fact that the power board had for the past six years worked its men for only 40 hours per week, it was compelled, under the section of the Act, to increase the hourly rate of pay to 46-40ihs of the former rate when the maximum hours of work were reduced from 46 to 40. The board submitted that as it had not reduced its working hours it was not compelled by the section to increase its hourly rate of pay. The weekly wages of none of its workers had been reduced by the abovo order of the Court. It had. however, made a considerable voluntary increase. Rate of Pay

The magistrate said in his judgment that the term " ordinary rate of pay " used in the section meant the rate of pay actually earned by a worker 011 the hours he customarily worked, not the amount he might have earned had he worked the maximum hours allowed by the award. The reduction of the maximum hours by the order of the Arbitration Court thus did not mean a reduction in the ordinary rate of pay of the power board employees. Where, prior to the making of the order of the Court, a 40-hour week at award rates was observed by an employer, then section 21, sub-section 3, of tho Act did not mean that the rate of wages should be raised at all. Judgment was accordingly given in favour of the power board.