WAR BONUS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 944, 19 February 1917, Page 9

WAR BONUS.

ALLEGED BREACH OF AWARD. Press Association. AUCKLAND, February 17. An opinion was delivered in the Supreme Court in a case set down from the Magistrate's Court, in which the Inspector of Awards proceeded against the Auckland Gas Company to recover £lO as a penalty for an alleged breach of the amendment to the Northern District engineers' Award. The case as set out in the Lower Court was that the company during the period between August 21 and November 11, 1910, employed an engineer and failed to pay him a war bonus of Id per hour in addition to the wages paid him provided for by clauses la and b of the award. It was admitted that both before and after June 3(1, 1015, when the company was made a party to the award, an ordinary week's work consisted of 47 hours, the worker being crcditjed with having worked 48 hours for ! which he received £3 6Y-. After the order of the court came into operation in August, 1910, the company jpaid the worker for the actual hours I worked at the rate of 1 /4i per hour, I plus the war bonus of Id per hour, | which resulted in his receiving (including the bonus) £3 8/7 for 47 hours worked.

The evidence for the company was that it had been the custom for years (o pay for 47 hours actually worked, and give (he equivalent of the extra hour's work as a bonus. When the award was made, it was found there was no increase in the maximum rate of pay already paid, namely, I/-J2 per hour for 17 hours. The company decided, however, to still give the equivalent of the extra hour as a gratuity.

The Inspector of Awards contended thai the war bonus should have been paid in addition to the wages paid as in August, 1916, and that the action of the company had resulted in the worker receiving 1/4 less per week of 17 hours than he was entitled to.

The opinion of the court was, that for the purposes of the award, the wages paid prior to August, 1915, must be deemed to have been .C 3 (>/- per week of M hours. The man was really paid wages at the rate of nearly 1/5 per hour for time actually worked. In the absence of proof that the works had acknowledged that payment for the hour not actually worked was a bonus or gratuity, the amount paid for such hour in accordance with a long-established custom would reasonably be regarded as part of the wages. The court was of opinion that the contention of the inspector was correct.