WAGES CASE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 131, 4 June 1937, Page 9

WAGES CASE

EFFECT OF AN AWARD CLAIM AGAINST COMPANY COtTRr RESERVES DECISION Judgment was reserved in a case in which the Labour Department proceeded against the Auckland Gas Company in the Magistrate’s Court on , Monday, before Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M., for alleged failure to pay two | employees the award rate of wages J payable to journeymen gas fitters. Mr. •C. P. Smith represented the depart]ment and Mr. Aiderton appeared for ! the company. I Mr. Smith stated that the company : employed a number of gas fitters and apprentices in addition to two workers, who were referred to as labourers. These two men were paid £3 a week. The department hoped to prove they spent time in tradesmen’s work coming under the scope of the award and that they should consequently be paid as journeymen. Evidence was given in support of the claim that the two men worked part of the time as tradesmen. Evidence was given by Harold Young, a foreman employed by the company, who said that the two men had been employed as fitters’ labourers or assistants. They sometimes did minor trade work of a less skilled nature, each working with a journeyman. Counsel for the company claimed that neither of the two men was employed on full time work as a journeyman and should not be paid as a journeyman. The men were taken on in 1935 when there was no award. They were retained when the award came into operation and their pay was increased from £2 a week to £3. “Is seems unfortunate if the company has to be penalised because the foreman gave work out of kindness of heart to men who had been to him on a number of occasions, asking for something to do,” said the magistrate in reserving his decision. “Now it looks as if the company is in the position of having to pay these men the same wages as a journeyman.”