PARTY TO AWARDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1924, Page 8

PARTY TO AWARDS.

ARMSTRONG, WHITWORTH CASE. WAGES CLAUSE ONLY BINDING. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Dec. 22. Judgment was. given in the Arbitration Court to-day in the case where applicationci were made by four trade unions to have Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., contractors for the Arapuni hydro-electric works, added to various awards. ‘The court ordered that the company should be added as a party to each of the awards. It was, however, to be bound, only by those provisions of the awards prescribing minimum rates of wages. The company was exempted from all the other provisions, if, and so long as it should in respect of all conditions of employment and other matters, contract with its workers on terms not less favourable to the workers than those contained in the industrial agreement made between the company and the New Zealand Workers’ Union.

In a memorandum the court stated that the company opposed the application on the ground that the Public Contracts Act ousted the jurisdiction of the court. The court was of the opinion however, that the Act added to. rather than subtracted from the obligations imposed by court awards. The agreement between the company and tilie New Zealand Workers’ I nion was defective in law. but the conditions were approved ■by the employees. The main objection of the craft unions to that agreement, in so far as the merits arc concerned, was that it provided for a 47-hour week. The men, however, were engaged on\work in isolated settlements, and it hiN often been provided by the court, in awards fixing an eighthour day and a 44-liour week, that men engaged on country wonk might agree with their employers to work different hours without payment of overtime rates. In the present case the men ■wished to work a 47-hour week and the conditions of employment were favourable to them. That did not involve any departure from the general principle of a 44-liour week for craftsmen, and, as Juul been already mentioned, there was a precedent for special latitude in cases where the conditions of employment were unusual. An important factor was the desire of the men to work on the co-operative system, and that was not provided for in the craft awards, which in many other respects did not make provision for the class of work carried on iby the company. , The effect of the present order was to make award rates of wages binding on the company, while leaving it free to contract with its workers in regard to other matters, subject only to the conditions agreed upon being not less favourable to the workers than those now observed. 'The court was prepared to make similar orders in regard to any other awards to which the company might subsequently -become automatically a party. The unions concerned are the Auckland Amalgamated Engineering, Boilermakers, Carpenters and Joiners, and the Builders and Contractors’ Labourers’ Union.