DEDUCTION FROM PAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19315, 4 May 1937, Page 13

DEDUCTION FROM PAY

DAY NOT WORKED DISMISSAL OF CHARGE (Per Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., this day. A reserved .judgment in a case of importance under the labour laws was given by Mr. .1. L. Stout, S.M., today, the Case being a test one brought by the Department of Labour against the Mnnawatu Knitting Mills, Limited.

It was submitted for the defence at the hearing that if the department's contention were upheld, the industry would be .called upon to bear an additional burden of costs never contemplated. The defendant eompanv was charged with employing a person with over three years of factory experience for the week- ended on Jaiiary 15 and failing to pay not less than £2.

It was claimed that this was a breach of the Factories Act, as amended in 1930.

The facts are not in dispute. An employee was paid £2 5s weekly. She lost one's day employment through ho fault of hers," but on the instruction of her employers on account of a temporary slackness of work in her department. As a result she had 9s, representing one day's wages, deducted, bringing the wages for that week down to £L 16s.

The department claimed that section :S!2 of the Act made it penal to reduce the weekly wage below £2. The magistrate stales that no authority Avas quoted for this proposition, but it was contended that it was the meaning of the section. He held that the wording of the section was against such a construction, for the concluding words of sub-section (u) contemplated reductions by limiting the reductions from wages of hoys and women under IS years of age to the. time lost through the worker's illness or default, or on account of a temporary closing of the factory for cleaning or repairing machinery.

"I think that all the section does is to fix the minimum rate of pay for a full week's work," said the magistrate. "This is a guide to employers or the Arbitration Court in fixing wages in an industry. On an analogy of the basic wage as fixed by the'Arbitration Court the provision does not mean that the worker is entitled to a minimum wage irrespective of work done by such worker, but thai the worker is "to be paid for work done at not less than the rates fixed by the section. This view is supported by section 14 of the amending Act 'of l!>:!(i, providing for payment for certain holidays. The charge, therefore, must be dismissed."