INTERESTING POINT

Hokitika Guardian, 26 April 1933, Page 6

INTERESTING POINT

CONCILIA T lON CO MM IBS TONER ’ S POWER.

DISCUSSION BY COUNCIL

[Per Press Association Copyright.)

CHRISTCHURCH, /(pri! 25

The power of a Conciliation commissioner to strike out parties t u ar> application .for the hearing of an industrial! -dispute, and to grant those parties a separate. , hearing, -wa* discussed before the Conciliation Council on Alonday. . Q. ,7, Eorbi's and other employers in the grocery trade 'made application for ,a- ’.new agreement with thy. Grocer's Assistants Union. Thu question arose wlien the .Commissioner, Air ft. Ritchie. announced that .at the .request (1 f the Canterbury Afasiei Grocer’s Union of Employers, representing nine nip layer?, he. had struck those nine out of the general application of C- -L Forbes and others. and had appointed a separate day for the hearing of the c-asc. Thy parties struck out were all grocers ..controlling big business, two of them chain stores.

Mr L. ,T. Aiaellon drl, appearing as agent for the. ..Master Grocer s Union (the parties struck out) Said, there was no dispute in thi> terms o) the act. The citation had been issued by Forbes, b’<t l.one of the principal applicants had he,,.-,-) consulted. Ho maintained that the dispute was not. a -genuine one.

Arc Ritchie said the Act did nut limit- the number of industrial' agreements that might exist in any one district at once, and it seemed to him that, in natural justice, the other parties should be struck out from the present dispute, and beard' I 'ter. Air AI. I- Riordan, the assessor f° r . th o employers, said that tire clause in the Act- under which the Commis-

sioner was using power to strike out parties, was intended only U, allow ■a Commissioner to strike out parties if they were not engaged in the industry.

- -Resolutions wer e then carried by Council, directing that the nine -p"i'tios struck out bo reinstated in the dispute, and that the case be stated to obtain in. ruling of i th.„ Arbitration Court on the question of the Commissioners power to strike, out parties.