ARBITRATION COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22136, 14 December 1933, Page 6

ARBITRATION COURT

INTERPRETATION OF ORDER During .the recent sitting of the Arbitration Court in Dunedin, the court was requested to formulate an opinion regarding the interpretation of the order fixing the minimum rates of wages for female workers in private hotels. The president of the court (Mr Justice Frazer) has delivered the following opinion : Section 7 (5) of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment •Act, 1932, provides that the court shad make an order fixing the minimum rates of wages that may be paid to female workers in the “ industry or industries ” to which the dispute- relates. Such an order may be made whether an. award has or lias not been formerly in existence. The, limitation of the' scope of the expired award-can,, therefore, have no bearing on the meaning to be given to the term “ private hotel industry.” In any event, successive awards limited the definition of “ private hotel ” in different ways, and the last award included in its scope a small number of establishments more correctly described as boarding houses, while in the recent dispute it was sought to have a wider definition of the term included in the proposed award. The court is, therefore, compelled to give a meaning to the term “ private hotel ” without reference to any of the arbitrary definitions it has used in the past in its awards. For the purposes of the Shops and Offices Act, 1921-22, the word “ shop *’ includes (section 2), an hotel, but does not include a private hotel or boarding house in which fewer than three persons are usually employed other than members of the occupier’s family, and (he word “ restaurant ” includes a privatehotel or boarding house in which three or more persons arc usually employed other . than members of the occupier's family. These definitions are, of- course, inserted in the Shops and Offices Act merely for the purpose of indicating the classes of establishment to which the provisions of that Act apply, and do not have any bearing on the meaning to be given to the term “ private hotel ’’ in relation to an application under section 7 (5) of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1932. The court must put to itself the question, “What is a private hotel?” or “What is meant by the private hotel industry? { In the opinion of the court, a private hotel, as distinguished from a boarding house, must be taken to be any premises in which a business similar to that of a licensed hotel (with the exception of the bar trade), including the, provision and salo of meals to the general public, is carried on. It caters for the gcmval public by supplying single meals and beds for a single night, ns n licensed hotel does, whereas a boarding house eaters more especially for permanent and somi’-pormanent guests. The size of (be establishment and the number of the staff employed do not affect the position; it is solely a matter of the class of business carried on. In the opinion of the court, the order is binding on the proprietors of all private hotels as abom defined.