FLAGRANT BREACH OF AWARD SAYS JUDGE

Chronicle (Levin), 13 March 1947, Page 5

FLAGRANT BREACH OF AWARD SAYS JUDGE

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oxiRlSTOxiUJvOj.I, Marcn 12. "'Do you expeet the Court to De a jubber Soamp approvlng the actions of fchose who break the law?" asked Mr. uUGtice Tyndall of the secretary of the Janterbury Freeziiig Worxs Employ^es Union, Mr. H. G. Kilpatrick, in the .irbitration Court when Mr. Kilpatrick idmitted that by-proaucts workers had adjusted their pay without the approva*. of the Court or the Economic StabiiiSa^on Commission. Mr. Kilpatrick asked the Court for a retrospecuve amenciment to certain wage rates in the Canterbury, Otago and Southland By-products Workers Award. Mr. Kilpatrick claimed. that :he Factories Ameiidment Act, 1945 operated uni'airly because it had adversely affected houriy workers. Men on houriy wages, when the hours had oeen reduced fiiom 44 to 40 a week, had lost four hoiU'k' pay while at the same time the pay of workers on weekly wages was not affected. He sought an adjustment of the rates of pay for houriy workers to secure them the same amount as they received on Decemhei6, 1945, and to make the increase retrospective to December 7, 1945, the day on which the Act came into force. Mr. KilpatricK, questioned by his Honour, said that when the wage-cut-fing effect of the Act was discovered, the union had met the employers and discussed an . adjustment in favour oi fche hourly-pa.y men, without success. The quescion was later adjusted on the job. "If what you say is correct then a flagrant breach of the law has been committed," said his Honour. "Tho adjustment was not approved by thc Court or by the Stabilisation Commission.' ' "That is the positioh," replied Mr. Kilpatrick The workers have been forced to do this kind of thing. Breaches of the stabilisation regulations are quite common." His Honour: "We are under no illusions about that, Mr, Kilpatrick. 11 there has been a breach I submit that it is not the concern of the Court but of some Government Department. "We'do not ask the Court to endorse an illegal act but to correct an anomaly in the award, ' ' said Mr. Kilpatrick 'who asked that in the new award alL workers now on an houriy basis should be put on weekly wages. For the employers, Mr, H. F. Butland said that in the case of workers at, municipai abattoirs pay adjustments had been made of necessity to keep the abattoirs cleared of offal.