WORK AT EXHIBITION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23470, 6 October 1939, Page 9

WORK AT EXHIBITION

INTERPRETATION OF AWARD Interpretation of a clause in the New Zealand builders and contractors' labourers' award affecting work at the Centennial Exhibition was sought in an application heard by the Arbitration Court yesterday. Mr. Justice O'Rpgan presided. Mr. T. 0. Bishop, secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, appeared for the employers, and Air. P. M. Butler, secretary of the New Zealand Labourers' Union, for the workers. Under the award, men engaged on suburban work other than at the shop of the employer shall be conveyed to • and from work, where the job is over one and a-half miles from specified Central points in the various large towns, by or at the expense of the employer and in the employer's time. Applying for an interpretation of this clause, the inspector of awards reported that the contractors for the exhibition. Fletcher and Love (the Fletcher Construction Company and the Love Construction Company in conjunction) had established headquarters at the site, which was about four and a-half miles from the central point fixed in Wellington. The question was whether the whole area of 55 acres or any portion of it should be regarded as "the shop of the employer." The workers denied that the site was the "shop" of the employer. The employers held that the partnership was an entirely distinct organisation from the partner companies and that the whole of its headquarters, the exhibition site, was its "shop." The Court reserved its decision.