WORKER'S WAGES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 5

WORKER'S WAGES.

Position of the Part-time Employee. BEFORE COURT OF APPEAL. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 18. The question of the scale of wages to be paid under the Workers Compensation Act, 1922, to a man who has been injured while working only part time is concerned in a case at present ! before the Court of Appeal. Plaintiff. Doris Blenkiron, of Stockton. Westport, is the widow of Alfred Blenkiron. an employee of the West-port-Stockton Coal Company, who was killed by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment as a miner in the company’s mine at Stockton in February, 1933. Defendant company paid to the Public Trustee on behalf of plaintiff £659 and denied liability to pay more. Plaintiff claimed a further £340 on the ground that the average weekly earnings of deceased exceeded £6. On account of a shortage of orders received for coal, breakdowns, holidays and strikes, the mines worked onlv 113 shifts during the twelve months prior to the death of Blenkiron, who worked 110 of these shifts and three additional special shifts, receiving as his total wages for the vear £133. The point to be decided is whether the compensation should be assessed as if Blenkiron had worked full time during the year instead of only partial time owing to the partial cessation of mining operations by the company. Mr P. T. O Regan is appearing for plaintiff, and Mr J. Stevenson, with Mr H. J. Bishop, for defendant. For the defendant company, Mr Stevenson submitted that the construction hitherto placed on the Workers Compensation Act by the Arbitration Court was erroneous and led to an anomalous position resulting in injus tice to employers Under the Act. compensation was assessed on a basis of average weekly earnings received by the worker while at work during the

twelve months preceding the accident, but no account was to be taken of any periods during which the worker had been absent from work. The Arbitration Court had construed “absent from work” as meaning absent, whether work was available or not, with the result that the worker obtained the benefit of slack times. If he worked forty weeks, was absent from available work two weeks and was idle for the remaining ten weeks owing to slackness of trade, then the Arbitration Court would have ascertained the average weekly earnings by dividing the total earnings for the year by forty. He submitted that the true assessment of such a case would be to divide bv fifty. The worker could not be absent from work if there was no work from which to be absent because of slack times. Therefore the time during which he was idle must be taken into account, since to do otherwise would result in a false assessment of the worker’s earning capacity and he might get more on compensation than when actually working. The case was adjourned.