EMPLOYMENT OF NONUNIONIST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40041, 19 December 1929, Page 2

EMPLOYMENT OF NONUNIONIST.

FLAX MILL 'OO. 'SUCCEED

AGAINST UNION’'S ACTION,

In the Magistrate’s Court at Palmerston North on 17th instant the Manawatu Flaxmill Employees’ Union proceeded against A. Ross, Rough and 'Co. Ltd., for an alleged breach of the Wellington Industrial District Flaxnvills Employees’ Award in that the defendant company did employ a non-unionist as a benchholder in and failed to dismiss him when requested so to do by the Union, when there was a memlber of - the Union equally qualified to perform the work and ready and willing .to do so. Mr. A. M. Ongley appealed for the Union and Air. Bergin (Foxton) for defendant company. Mr. Ongley, in outlining the ease, stated that the union was asking for the infliction of the £lO penalty prescribed under the Act on the ground that defendant company had employed a non-union worker named Newton,, and when a competent union worker named Hii’ini had.come forward to undertake the work, had refused to discharge Newton and employ the union man. Air. Bei-gin, for defendant company, contended that Hirini was not competent to undertake the work, as he was only a. youth without the experience and strength of Newton.

Percy Tucker Robinson, secretary of the Union, was called and stated that he knew Hirini to he reliable and quite) able to undertake the work. The company had employed Newton as a benehloader and Hirini had already performed this class of work in another mill. To AH. Bergin: He had known Hirini for 5 years, and Newton for IS months. •'He had seen 'both men at work. 'He had not made any special test with either man. Hirini could handle 11 ol* 12 tons of flax daily. He was a reliable lad. Benchloading was a simple job, the first a flaxmill-hand was pjit on to do in a mill. He did not know Newton’s age. The benehloader’s work 'didOifrt affebt : the “feeder.”'

W. Hirini, in. evidence, stated that lie had seen Newton working .-and considered he'could do that man’s work in a satisfactory manner. He t admitted to Aljr- Bergin that his longest job in 1 five years had lasted six weeks. He knew that Newton had been benchloading with Ross, Rough and Co. for two seasons. He ■knew also that, with one exception, all* the bench loaders in the district were men. He himself was only 18 years of age. Most of the work he had done had been of a casual nature. He did not consider himself as strong as Newton, but lie thought he could do the work. He had done some “feeding.” He had failed to turn up at work when employed by another miller recently but he had told another Maori to take his place. Air. Bergin submitted that before the plaintiff Union could succeed it must prove (!) that Hirini was equally qualified to do Newton’s work and (2) that the defendant had failed to make a selection between the two men in good faith and upon the merits. - Obviously on the evidence addressed by the plaintiff Union it could prove neither. On his own evidence Hirini was an unreliable Native youth, 18 yealrs of age, inexperienced and physically unlit to supplant a man who had been iir his job fo(r twof'seasons. After outlining the duties of a benehloader and the effect of an incompetent man upon the other men, he claimed that the defendant Coy. was within its rights in refusing to comply with the Union’s demand to ' dismiss Newton and that it had made a proper choice in good faith.

At this stage the Magistrate interrupted counsel to ' ask whether the Union was still of opinion that Hirini should have been substituted foir Newton, and that defendant Co. had committed a breach. The Union secretary, through his counsel, replied in the affirmative.

The S.M.: “Well, I do not.” I cannot understand the 'attitude of the Union in its endeavours to have a capable man discharged from fa job which he has held successfully fpr.Jwo seasons and to substitute an IS-year-old Maori youth who On his own shoeing was unreliable and who had pottered about the mills being able to hold one job for five weeks in live years.”

The Magistrate said that it appeared as if there might be something behind this ease. On the facts before the Court- it savoured of “persecution.”- It even might be that Newton had reasons for not joining the Union in view of its attitude and fiction/ iii'/Uiis eas.e. He was quite prepared to enforce the provisions of the Award as to preference to unionists, but the Union would have to bring a proper ease before him. Its claim in the present case was preposterous. Wifch ; some - further _ remarks as to the Union’s action in instituting the present- proceedings he entered, judgment in favour of-the defendant company with costs. •