INDUSTRIAL AWARDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1129, 17 May 1911, Page 5

INDUSTRIAL AWARDS.

*_ PREFERENCE CLAUSES DISCUSSED.

■ '(By Telegraph-Press Association.) Dunedin, May IG. -Two recommendations 'for awards in aisputes between the'.Hotel, Restaurant, and Boardinghousc Employees' Union and the licensed hotelkeepers and prijaco hotelkeepers respectively camo before the Arbitration Court to-day. In each recommendation there were two distinct prelerenco clauses." Mr. Breen, representing the Workers' Union, said ho wished tho Court to mako some- alteration. One of the forms-of .preference in the recommendation was really under certain conditions compulunionism. It provided that an employer might engago whom he liked so long as within fourteen days after engagement tho worker became a member ot the union. Tho other was the ordin"y preference ■ clause providing that ooher things being equal, the employer must give preference to a unionist. Which ot tneso was tho employer to observe' Mr. Justice- Sim said tho Court could ao , t , '"sort both clauses in an award. ■Mr.- Breen said the first clause was a favourite with Mr. Triggs, the Conciliation Commissioner, who had inserted it without full consideration on tho part of the union.

His Honour: Suppose an employer engaged a- worker not a member of a union, ami says: "You have to join tho union in fourteen days." If the worlcor does not join, does that mean that tho employer is to bo dragged before tho Court and fined? or is the worker to be

Mr. Breen: I certainly read it to moan that the responsibility rests with tho employer if the man does not join the union in fourteen days, and that the employer would bo committed for breach ot award if he retained tho man in his service. We, have been working under it for eighteen months and there has not been a prosecution. What we ask is that all engagements should bo mado through tho union. Wo want tho responsibility of keeping unions clean, and not to havo to enroll every Tom, Dick and Harry who is sent along. We' wanted to find employers competent and respectablo workers, but employers will not accept.this. They want a free hand and wo are prepared to give them a free htmd provided employees join tho union. Mr. Sr.ott: What is tho union's objection to the preference clause?

Mr. Breen said a month was too long to allow a worker to decide whether or not ho-would join tho union.

Mr. Pryor said employers did not believe in compulsory unionism. Ho suggested working under the preference clause in tho Wellington award in the same sort of dispute, which luid worked satisfactorily in Wellington for three years.

Mr. Breen Infer drew the Court's attention to tho need for uniformity in regard to the- preference clause. A girlmight be working in a hotel one week and in a restaurant another week, and though there was only one union lo which she could belong she-- might, at different times, come under three separate preference clauses in different awards.

The Court agreed■ that it would be desirable to have uniformity.