COMPULSORY UNIONISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16663, 7 April 1916, Page 96

COMPULSORY UNIONISM

POWERS OF ARBITRATION COURT. COURT OF APPEAL RESERVES JUDGMENT. (Pee United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, April 5. Arguments were continued this morning in the Court o£ Appeal in the case of Magner v. (Johns. The case arises under .an award made on June 19, 1915, in an industrial di6{>uto between the Wellington District Hotel Club and the Restaurant Workers' Industrial Union of Workers and certain employers. On August 18, 1915, an action was brought in the Magistrate's Court at Wanganui by the Inspector of Awards against Annie Magner, of W&nganui, a barmaid, to recovcr the sum of £5 as a penalty for a breach of award. It was found, or admitted, at the hearing that she was in the service of an employer bound by the award, that she was not a member of the union, and that alio had been duly requested to Join the union, but had refused to do so. The magistrate held, upon these facts, that Annie Alagner was guilty of a breach of the award. ,nd gave judgment against her for the sum ct i-'i She appealed against the judgment as being erroneous in law, tho contention being that the Court of Arbitration had no jurisdiction to insert in an award such a provision as the clause before mentioned, as it amounted to compulsory unionism. The Solicitor-general, on behalf of the Crown, submitted that the clause in the award was intra vires of the court. He contended that an awaxd absolutely prohibiting tho employment of non-unionists amounted merely to preference to unionists within tho meaning of section 2 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. If the preference clause must be conditional, the clause under review was conditional. ■If i'tile award! absolutely prohibiting the employment of non-unionists was not within paragraph (e), it was within paragraphs (b) and <c) as relating to the status and qualification of workers (Taylor and Oakley, 18 N.Z.L.R., 876). Sir J. Eindlay followed tho Solicitor-general,, and, Mr Skerrett having replied, decision was reserved.