BAKERS' AWARD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22963, 15 February 1938, Page 14

BAKERS' AWARD

WORK OF LABOURERS DEFINITION OF SCOPE ARBITRATION COURT'S VIEW Judgment 111 the case in which an inspector of awards, Mr. C. P. Brookes, claimed £lO penalty from Arthur Edmund Thomas, trading as tlio Crown Bakery, was given by the Second Court of Arbitration yesterday. The plaintiff had claimed to recover a penalty from the bakery lor an alleged breach of the bakers aud pastrycooks and their labourers' award, alleging that the defendant had employed I>. Guptill and had failed to pay him the prescribed minimum wage. It was contended that Guptill, a junior labourer, by placing dough on tho scales and making its weight correct, and cutting largo pieces of dough out of the trough and placing it on a bench ready for cutting up, had performed trade work, aud was therefore entitled to £5 10s u week as a journeyman baker. He was in fact being paid £2 IBs tid a week. Tho case was stated for the opinion of the Court by Mr. C. K. Orr Walker, S.M., and it had to decide whether tho work done by Guptill was outside his work as a junior labourer, and entitled him to receive wages as a journeyman baker. Mr. Smith appeared ior the department and Mr. Hogben lor the defendant. The Court stated that the award limited the work of a baker's labourer to unskilled work, includiug assisting 111 working machines, but prohibited him from being employed in the actual manufacture of bread or small goods. The award of 1912 provided that a baker's labourer should not bo employed in actual manufacture, except that he might be used to help a journeyman iu working a bread-making machine. The only machine in the bakery was a dough mixer. 1 For tho defendant, Mr. Hogben had submitted that Guptill was doing work which was part of the manufacture, but not of the actual manufacture, and that the term "actual manufacture" was confined to those operations which were actually part of the process of converting raw material into bread. The Court could not accept this view, and it seemed obvious that a strict line must bo drawn between the work of tho journeyman and that, of the labourer, and that the distinction was well understood in the trade, seeing thqt a similar provision had been in force for 25 years. If the labourer handled raw dough he was taking part in the actual manufacture of bread. Outside of the actual manufacture he might perform any kind of unskilled work, including assisting in working machines. The Court was therefore of opinion that the work done by Guptill was outside the scope of his work as a junior labourer. The decision represented the viev of » majority of the Court.