The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 4, 1909. INTERPRETATION OF FLAXMILLERS’ AWARD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 476, 4 September 1909, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 4,1909. INTERPRETATION OF FLAXMILLERS’ AWARD.

Judgment was given at Wellington this week, by his Honor Mr Justice Sim, in regard to an application, beard in Palmerston North on August 19th, for au| interpretation of the Mauawatu Flaxmillers’ Award. Briefly, his Honour said that clause 4 of the award fixed the minimum rates of pay for the several classes of workers employed in flaxmills, including feeders, bench-loaders, and catchers, washers, sorters and shakers. Messrs Broad and Reeve, who were bound by the award, entered into a contract with four workers, by which these workers agreed during the continuance of the agreement —from May 3rd to July 31st, 1909— to do all the stripping at the Kea Flaxmill, Oroua Bridge, at the rate of 3s Bj£d per ton of green flax, cut and used at the mill. The question was, whether this agreement was valid, although under its provisions the contractors might earn less than the minimum wages prescribed by the award. The parties had created between themselves the relation they had desired to establish that of employer and contractor. It was certain that the parties to the agreement had not intended to create the relation of master and servant. A question had also been submitted in connection with an agreement for the work of scutching at a flaxmill. That question was really answered by the opinion already given in connection with the agreement for stripping. If a flaxmill owner entered into a bona fide contract with a contractor by which the latter agreed to do all the work of scutching at a flaxmill during a definite period, at a fixed price per ton on terms such as those set out in the printed form submitted by the inspector, such an agreement would not create the relation of master and servant between the parties, and would not amount to a breach of award, although the rate to be paid per ton was less than that fixed by the award. An employer would not be entitled to insist on any workers working under the award signing such an agreement. The agreement, when signed by the parties, to be of any avail must be a bona fide contract made by the parties. The above decision, though interesting from the point of view of legal technicalities, loses much of the halo of romance woven about it by some of our more impulsive contemporaries, when it is viewed with the cold and calculating eye of a practical miller. We have it on good authority that few, if any, of our local millers would seriously consider a contract based upon the output of green leaf ; the concensus of opinion being that the tendency of the average worker would be to rush the flax through with a cheerful disregard as to whether or not it reached its appointed end in the shape of bales, “A contract that pays the feeder on the tonnage that goes THROUGH THE MACHINE is DO earthly use to me,” emphatically declared one miller, adding significantly, ‘‘especially as I am paying royalty on the green leaf, not on the dry fibre.” This would appear to be the general opinion abroad, that unless the contracts in question can be improved out of recognition, the decision will make little or no alteration in the status quo. Interviewed by a Herald representative, a member of the Union Executive, although noncommittal, said ; ‘‘There is bound tp be a certain amount of disappointment abroad amongst us as to the Court’s decision. Nobody actually enjoys losing, but having asked for an interpretation, and got it, we shall, as heretofore,

abide by the decision of the Court, with that loyalty which has always characterised our organisation.” He added that the approach of a new award had robbed the possible system of much of its effiaccy as an instrument of ‘‘Squeezing” in the hands of an employer who might not be as scrupulous as most of the millers were. He was careful to explain that the foregoing merely expressed his personal impressions; that the official opinion would be found in the next issue of ‘‘The Press Hank.”