AWARD REFUSED

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8122, 16 May 1912, Page 6

AWARD REFUSED

EMPLOYERS’ APPLICATION AUCKLAND WATERSIDE WORKERS' DISPUTE. PRESS ASSOCIATION. , AUCKLAND, May 15. Judgment tv as given in the Arbitration Court to-day by Mr Justice Sim in the matter of an industrial dispute between Nearing and Co. and other employers and the Auckland Waterside Workers' Industrial Union of Workers. The application (made by the employers) for an award was dismissed on the ground that if the operation of cancelling the union’s registration under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act had pursued its proper course it would have been impossible for the court to have made an award. “It appears from the evidence," said his Honor, “that the application by the union for the cancellation of its registration was received by the Registrar on January 30th last, lu acknowledging, on February Ist, the receipt of the application, the Registrar sard that the application appeared to be in order. A notice of the Registrar’s intention to cancel the registration was duly published in the “Gazette” on February Bth, 1912. The sis weeks referred to in the notice expired on March 21st, and in the ordinary course of events the , registration of the union would have been cancelled shortly after that date. The Registrar refused, however, to proceed with the cancellation for the reason that conciliation proceedings wAre in progress in connection with the present dispute, and tnat the cancellation was prohibited therefore by a proviso to subsection A of section 21 of the principal Act of 1908. It appears to us that, in; the circumstances, this was not a valid ground for refusing cancellation." His Honor said that, whereas the Conciliation Commissioner had appointed assessors by writing, in accordance witu the provisions of the Act, on January Slst, the'application for cancellation was made on January 30th, hence these proceedings did not constitute any bar to cancellation. The union therefore ought to be treated as if it had ceased to exist for the purpose of making awards at the date when its registration ought to* have been cancelled. There was another ground also for refusing to make an . award, his Honor said. The employers who objected to an award being made employ about 90 per cent, of the labour affected by the dispute. These employers were working under an agreement made with the union in January last, outside of the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The agreement itself was no bar to the making of ah award, hut if such were made in terms of the recommendation of the Conciliation Court the result would be to compel employers to pay higher rates than those fixed by the agreement for several kinds of work, which rates the union objected to their being compelled to pay. "That such a result as this would be produced, is of itself a sufficient ground for refusing to make an award," concluded his Honor.