DENNISTON MINERS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2076, 31 December 1907, Page 2

DENNISTON MINERS

COURT OF APPEAL CASE,

Press Association. WELLINGTON, Dec. 30. Air. J. Lomas, of the Labor Department, who has just returned from the West Coast, states in regard to the dispute over the bank-to-liank clause that the miners intend appealing to the Court of Appeal to test tlie question whether the Arbitration Court ’award overrides the statute law, and as soon as the holidays are over a writ will probably be taken out.

THE PRESENT TROUBLE

PARTICULARS OF THE JUDG-

MENT

The telegrams have only made brief reference to tlie Arbitration Court’s judgment in the Dennisiam coal miners’ dispute with the AVestport Coal Company, Limited. The judgment sets out that the millers acquired the notion that the Coal Alines Act, 1905, had. benefited them in some way, and they concluded that notwithstanding the award made in Morel), 1907, which embodied an agreement made by tlie parties themselves, they were entitled to work only eight hours from bank to bank. The union intimated accordingly to tlie company on the Ist November that the members of the Union would from November 16tli act on this view of their rights, and notwithstanding tlie protests of the company, all the underground workers from the last-mentioned date refused to work more than eight hours from hank to bank. This involved reductions ranging from ten to sixty minutes per shift in tlie actual working time of the different miners. This state of affairs continued up to the time when this application came before the Court at Westport on December 4th; After hearing the parties and considering the matter, tlie Court on tlie same day informed the parties of its opinion as to their rights under tlie award. That opinion was that the Act of 1907 had not altered the rights or liabilities of the parties in any respect whatever, and that tlie union was quite wrong in tlie position which it had taken up in the matter. The underground workers who are working on shift wages must work eight hours at the face before they are entitled to receivo the wages fixed by the award, and when they have worked these hours they are entitled to ho paid in addition the overtime rates fixed by clause 16 of the award lor the time occupied in proceeding from the bank to the face and from the face to the bank. Section 37 of the Coal Alines Act. 1905, does not prescribe any rate of overtime, and it is open for the parties to agree, as they have done in this case, on what is little more than a nominal rate of overtime. The union and its members must, therefore, carry out the award in accordance with the interpretation now given of its provisions.

“The union has committed n broach of the award.” says the judgment. “hut in vigw of all the circumstances we have decided not to inflict a penalty. We are satisfied that the officers of the union acted under a liona fide misapprehension as to the effect of the new legislation—a misapprehension in which they had, apparently, the support of a legal adviser—hut we certainly think that they should not have insisted on putting their view into practical operation at once, especially as tho company had offered to give retrospective effect to unv decision of the Court on the subject. “In any cas? like the present, where there is a dispute as to the right of the parties under an award, neither party should make any change in the existing system until the opinion of the Court has been obtained on the point in dispute. A decision having now been given as to the present rights of the parties, tho Court expects the union to see that its members act in accordance with this decision. If this is not now done and the matter has to be brought before tile Court again, any breach of the award will have to he punished severely.

“A breach of award is recorded, and the union is ordered to pay the company’s disbursements for fees of Court and witnesses’ expenses, to he fixed by the Clerk of Awards.”