COURT OF APPEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21996, 4 July 1933, Page 8

COURT OF APPEAL

INDUSTRIAL AGREEMENT CASE POSITION OF DISSENTING PARTIES. (Peb United Pbess Association.) WELLINGTON, July 3. The Court of Appeal is hearing argument on a case stated for its opinion by the judge of the Arbitration Court, pursuant of section 105 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1925. The facts are .that the plaintiff, an inspector of awards, instituted proceedings in the Court of Arbitration at Auckland for the recovery of a penalty for alleged breach by R. and W. Hellaby, Ltd., of Auckland, .of the butchers’ industrial agreement, made by the Conciliation Council on May 3of this year. The breach alleged was that the defendant employed a roundsman and failed to pay him not less than the minimum rate of wages fixed by agreement. The defendant admitted the act complained of, but contended that no offence had been committed.on the ground that the said agreement was not valid, and that no settlement of the industrial dispute which gave rise to the agreement had, in fact, been made; that, moreover, the agreement was void in that it contained terms which were ultra vires, being in excess of the jurisdiction of the Conciliation Council. The defence relied bn the fact that, before the agreement was made, a dispute had arisen in the Conciliation Court as to the appointment of assessors, and the defendant company, along with certain other master butchers cited as parties, withdrew upon giving notice. The question for the consideration of the court turned on whether the Conciliation Council had the right to hear the original dispute and make a settlement binding on parties who did not agree thereto. v Mr Stevenson, for the defendants; said the main question was whether an industrial agreement purporting- to settle a dispute must be agreed to by all parties, or whether a council of conciliation could make an agreement binding on dissenting parties. His client had not been a party to the agreement, and had not consented to its being made. Counsel referred to the provisions in the principal Act of 1925 by which an industrial agreement was binding only on the parties subscribing to it, and stressed the absurdity of. a conciliation council acting under the 1932 amendment purporting to make an agreement binding on dissenting parties. The court adjourned until to-morrow.