LESS THAN AWARD PAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19025, 27 May 1936, Page 5

LESS THAN AWARD PAY

PART HANDED BACK ALLEGATIONS IN COURT (Per Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., this day. “This is a question of very grave importance to every worker in New Zealand if employers can get away with this practice, and for that reason I think it should be referred to the Arbitration Court,” declared Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., when two claims for wages were brought before him in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The feature of the case was that an employer concerned, a butcher, had paid award wages, but had each week received hack from the employees a portion of the. amount paid them, so that they netted considerably less than the award rate for which they regularly signed.

The claims were against Allan George Farland, who previously had been fined substantial amounts when prosecuted by the Department of Labour. Counsel for Farland contended that the claims must fail as the nibney had actually been received and signed for. The magistrate: If the parties agreed that the money was paid they probably found they were compelled to hand it hack; otherwise they lost their jobs. It Farland gets away with this, everybody in the country will start it. The point I am worried about is whether, having signed to receive money, they have tne right to recover it after handing it back. Decision was reserved.