PARTIES TO AWARDS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2225, 11 August 1914, Page 4

PARTIES TO AWARDS

A GRIEVANCE VENTILATED.

An injustice under which employers are said to labour under the existing .Arbitration laws was brought under the notice of Mr. Justice Stringer yesterday by Mr. Wm. Ferguson/ who was arpeoring in the Court of Arbitration as the represent tative of several gas companies. -Mr. Ferguson pointed out that frequently after awards had been, made, parties who had not been originally cited were brought td the Court in large numbers to be made parties to the awards, on which they had not been given an opportunity of stating their views. In one case in Dunedin, he said, 97 parties had been added ln-that way, and in anoth'jr case in Wellington it was sought to add over 140 parties by the same process.' This appeared to him to be an injustice and an abuse of the Act. j Mr. Justice Stringer remarked that it certainly was the purpose of the Act to give every person concerned an opportunity of placing his views before the Court, They should have been in the'original citation. „ „ ",,('■ '. ~ ' ■.« Mr. W. A. W. Grenfell and Mr. E. Kennedy, who weTe present, explained that in- the particular case before the Court a federation on both sides had ar< rived at an agreement for the purpose 01, having a Dominion award made. Mr. Kennedy added that the workers .were bouno by 'the award whether they happened tt be members of the union at'the.time ot His Honour said he would look into the question and see if some regulator could not be introduced to ad]ust mat. ters. Theoretically, of course, ties had an opportunity of placing their views before the Court when the appnca* fions were made to join them.