APPRENTICESHIP LAW

Taranaki Daily News, 23 November 1932, Page 9

APPRENTICESHIP LAW

BILL BEFORE PARLIAMENT

APPOINTMENT OF A COUNCIL.

POWERS OF COURT TO BE TAKEN. EXPLANATION OF THE MEASURE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The general object of the Apprentices, Bill insofar as it alters the existing law is to deprive the Arbitration Court of its general administration of the Act. This has been-done firstly by transferring to the Minister the Court’s powers of appointing and discharging committees and enlarging and diminishing the localities within which the committees function, and appointing district registrars to exercise the functions. of the committee where there is no committee. There has also been transferred to the Minister , the Court’s powers of applying and exempting from the operations of the Act certain employers and apprentices.

The most important innovation is the establishment of an apprenticeship council consisting of a registrar of apprentices, two representatives of the employers in the industries employing apprentices and two representatives of the workers in such industries. The Secretary of Labour now holds the office of registrar of apprentices, but the Bill proposes the office of registrar shall not be held concurrently with any other office in the Public Service. Any inspector or factories may be appointed district registrar of apprentices. There will be transferred to the apprenticeship council the principal powers of the Court for making apprenticeship orders such as wages, hours and other conditions of employment, the proportion of apprentices to journeymen, the period of apprenticeship in any industry, the minimum age for the commencement of apprenticeship and the period of probation to be served by an apprentice. The power of requiring employers to employ apprentices has been dropped. The original Act gave the Court power to require any employer to employ such a number of apprentices as it considered necessary to ensure an adequate supply of journeymen in the interests of the industry. The apprenticeship council will also have transferred to it the Court’s present power of hearing and determining appeals, of controlling the functioning of committees and of making orders. Resolutions Of the apprenticeship council can be passed only by a majority, which includes the registrar. z The only function left to the Court

is to fix payments, if any. ter be made to apprentices bn the bankruptcy of thenemployers.