ARBITRATION COURT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 199, 20 May 1944, Page 6

ARBITRATION COURT

Restoration Of Full Powers Urged (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. May 19. A decision to ask the Government to restore the full powers of the Arbitration Court was reached at a meeting of the Auckland Trades Council last night and the National Executive of the Federation of Labour is to be urged to take un the matter with the Government. Since stabilization began the Court has lost almost all its powers for dealing with disputes, said Mr. F. Craig, president of the council, in commenting this morning on the decision. Agreements made . in Conciliation Council could not be ratified by the Court if they iff any way infringed on the stabilization regulations as everything agreed on seemed to be contrary to the regulations. In consequence the Court, for practical purposes, had ceased to exist. , , ... The workers felt that they were left without an independent judicial tribunal where they could state their case for increases in remuneration and improvements in conditions they considered to be due to them in view of the increased cost of living which no workers accepted at the official figure of 13 per cent, since the start of the war. Instead of being determined by arbitration the workers’ conditions and wages were controlled by the stabilization regulations and by the wages commissioner appointed by tlie Government. „ . , WJien the present Government entered office one of the main planks. Mr Craig said, was the restoration of the workers right to go to arbitration to settle disputes. —