DAIRY WORKER'S WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 86, 8 October 1931, Page 15

DAIRY WORKER'S WAGES

The Arbitration. Court's interpretation of the Wellington ,Dairy Factories Employees' Award in regard to the payment of a worker at tho Bongomai cheese factory was delivered to-day. The position was that a youth, under 20 years of age, was engaged..on 25th August, 1930, to assist at tho factory, which, for the purposes of the case, wus regarded as a two-vat factory- On Bth November, 1930, the youth attained the age of twenty, and ho then became an adult worker; He was paid £2 12s 6d a week until he was '20, then £4 Is for two weeks, and thereafter, when two vats were in use, £4 17s 6d, a first assistant's rate. The only, other employeo was a working' manager. The Court held that if the youth were specifically engaged on 25th August as a first assistant, a contention made by the union and denied by the employer, he should have been paid £4 17s 6d for the whole season, otherwise £2 12s 6d until Bth November since the award did not. restrict the employment of youths in. such a factory. In regard to the period from Oth November onwards, the youth was then an adult assistant, and as the manager couia not bo graded as an assistant the youth was therefore the first and only assistant, and entitled to £-1 17s Cd a week.