CONCILIATION COUNCIL.

West Coast Times, 6 September 1909, Page 3

CONCILIATION COUNCIL.

EMPLOYERS OBJECTIONS.

[BY TELEGRAPH — PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

AUCKLAND, Sept. 5.

At the annual meeting of the Auckland Employers. Association strong resistance nas shown towards the Conciliation Councils being allowed to supersede tbe Arbiration Court. The executive ii its annual report said the setting, up of councils for separate disputes and the methods of procedure under the jurisdiction of commissioners had a detrimental effect upon the industries. "Many conditions," the report wont on, "have been allowed to be embodied in agreements and thereby subsequently included in awards, which are sure to prejudice both employers and workers in fhe near future. The tendency on the part of the missionevs is to settle disputes, irrespective of uhat the ultimate results may be ; 1-ence the many mistakes that j are being made for want of more careful consideration of what is justly due to the employers. The Court of Arbitration has recently made it quite' clearly understood that the time has arrived "for calling a halt" in the matter of increasing wages and decreasing the hours of labour. Consequently, when so-called disputes are now referred to the Court for settlement the unions are required to produce incontrovertible evidence to show why any alterations should be made in existing awards. This wise determination of the court is in many instances entirely ignored when agreements are being made by the Councils of Conciliation. Your executive therefore feels that it cannot too strongly urge the. necessity for e.;treir.« care being aken by all employers when nominating their assessors, and that no agreement should be entered upon which is not reasonably satisfactory to all employers concerned, it being considered desirable that all such cases should be ref ci red to the Arbiration Court. Another cause of complaint arising out of the administration of the statute in question is the action of the Labour Department's officials in urging upon magistrates the desirability of inflicting very heavy penalties for comparatively trivial offences, many employers by these means being fined as high as £10 for each socalled breach."

Mr Charles Rhodes (vipe-pi<esidcnt) spoke in ft ~ stuinevliat similar strain. "It has been suggested," he said, "that the Arbitration Court may before lons be superseded, in favour of Conciliation Commissioners , hut J think Uiat any such proposal should be resisted to the utmost. The Conciliation Commibsion<?ra may be successful .tion a thousand times more difficult, they would instantly find their positions a thousand times more difficlut, and litigants would feel that Instead of a conciliator they had in a layman commissioner an embyro dictator whose mailed fist could rarely be disguised under a velvet glove During the present period of depression would in any case Le an ill-judged time to abolish the Ai-bitmtion Court, unless the whole I apt went,' 1