ARBITRATION COURT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2235, 12 November 1907, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT.

A PECULIAR POINT. Press Association.

; ; WELLINGTON, Nov. 11 Tlio Arbitration Court delivered judgment in a case respecting the validity of tlie industrial agreement respecting tlie employment of cooks and waiters. The recommendations of the Conciliation Board became operative as an industrial agreement, because through some mistake the employers neglected to file, within tlio legal period, application to send the case on to the Arbitration Court. Last week, however, the Supreme Court decided that a restaurant is a shop and a waiter a shop assistant. A waiter being a shop assistant is debarred by tlie Shops and Offices Act from working more than 52 hours dn a week, whereas the industrial agreement fixes a waiter’s working hours at Go per week, the remuneration being arranged of course on that basis. The effect of the judgment delivered by the Arbitration Court is that tlio industrial agreement is invalid both as .applied to restaurants and hotels. The parties will now confer in pursuance of a suggestion of the Court, and if necessary a fresh dispute will be proceeded .with before the Court next Friday; --

The dispute between the Buildiing Trades and Laborers’ Union and the Employees’ Association, in respect of which the Conciliation Board’s recommendations were unsatisfactory to the workers, was considered. Evidence was taken, and the Court announced that it would fake time to consider the matter.