CLAIM FOR WAGES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25286, 21 August 1945, Page 7

CLAIM FOR WAGES

WORKER SUCCEEDS UNAUTHORISED .REDUCTION A decision that the district manpower officer has no power to authorise an employer to reduce the rate of wages of an employee for the class of work he is doing is contained in a reserved judgment issued by Mr J. H. Luxford, 1 S.M., in the case brought by C. Sinclair (Mr Tuck) against the Westfield Freezing Co., Ltd. (Mr Alderton). The plaintiff, a puller employed by the company, claimed that lie should have been paid at the rate of 3s 6d an hour, instead of 2s 7d, while doing labouring work during slack periods. He alleged that between "1941 and 1944 he had been short paid £l4. "Accepting as I do the plaintiff's evidence that the offer of labouring work was for him to accept or refuse, and was accepted only so far as it was necessary to increase his earnings during the period when there was little pulling to be done, I must hold that labouring was not part of his usual work within the meaning, of the Industrial Manpower Regulations," said Mr Luxford. A Wellington Decision In April, 1942, the National Efficiency Council, set up under the Freezing; Industry Emergency Regulations, ruled that pullers should receive 3s (3d an hour when required to do labouring work, but the company had reduced the plaintiff's wage to 2s 7d in Consequence of a decision given by the Wellington Manpower Appeal Committee on February 12, 1943, in a similar case concerning "pie-pickers" at the Finlay freezing works. If that decision was based merely on the fact that the "piepickers" had been accustomed to doing labouring work, it was made on erroneous grounds. Mr Luxford said he had pointed out on a number of occasions thatan award merely fixed a minimum rate of remuneration. and an employer might agree upon any remuneration he chose provided that it was in excess of the award wage. In abnormal times like the present, when a worker was engaged in an essential undertaking the employer no longer had the right to dismiss the worker nor the worker to leave his employment without the consent of the district manpower officer Powers of Official The moment, therefore, the defendant company fixed the plaintiff's rate of pay for labouring work at 3s 6d an hour that became the wage actually payable to him for that class of work and could not lawfully be reduced except by mutual agreement or by lawful termination of the contract of service and re-engagement at the lower rate. The reduction was made by the unilateral act of the defendant, although apparently with the consent of the district manpower officer. If such consent was given, said the magistrate, i he could find no legal authority for it. The manpower officer's authority was limited to approving the engagement, dismissal, termination of employment or transfer of' workers. He had no power to authorise an employer to "reduce the rate of the wages payable to a worker for the class of work he was doing. "For these reasons, the plaintiff is entitled to succeed and judgment will be entered accordingly," Mr Luxford concluded.