IS FOREMAN NECESSARY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19693, 27 July 1938, Page 7

IS FOREMAN NECESSARY

BAKEHOUSE EMPLOYMENT

ISSUE BEFORE COURT

(Pur Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCK, this day. Whether or not it is necessary to employ a foreman in a bakehouse, was the issue placed before the Second Court of Arbitration this morning when an appeal against the decision of a magistrate who dismissed a case

brought by the Labour Department against L. A. Woodward, Limited, for an alleged breach of the Norther.!, Wellington and Canterbury bakers' and pastrycooks' and their labourers' award was heard. Mr. R. T. Bailey submitted that an employer was entitled to be regarded as the foreman only if he was a competent 'baker, and if he did the work of foreman. There was no doubt that Woodward was competent, but if his staff began work at 10 p.m. and

worked until 7 a.m. and he .was there only occasionally between 0 a.m. and 7 a.m., tie could not be classed as a foreman.

Mr. Justice Hunter remarked that the magistrate had held, in his judgment, that there was nothing in the award regarding a foreman having to be employed.

'Mr. Bailey submitted that a foreman should be employed or that Woodward should do the foreman's work. Someone must accept responsibility and. undertake direction. It was accepted in the trade that a foreman should t>2 employed. If there was only one man in the bakery, lie was paid a foreman's wages.

Dr. A. C. Haslam, for Woodward, said the defence had been that Woodward did substantially the work of a foreman, and there was no provision in the award requiring a foreman to be employed. Even before the period oJ the aliened breaches, the bakery was an automatic one. Mr. Bailey? he said, from the way the charges were framed, apparently considered the employment of a foreman was obligatory, but Woodward did all the supervising required in an automatic bakery.

The court reserved i'ts decision.