Payment of Casual Workers

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 23, 28 January 1937, Page 8

Payment of Casual Workers

POINT TOR COURT Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 27. Claiming that under the Shops and Offices Act and its amendments an employer was compelled to pay £2 to a casual employee for any work in any one week, the Labour Department brought an action against W. J. Kingsland, hairdresser, in the Magistrate's Court this morning. The information was dismissed by Mr. E. C, Levvey, S.M., but the officer in charge of the Labour Department (Mr. R. T. Bailey) asked that surety be fixed for appeal. Surety was fixed at £lO 10s. Mr. McGregor, a Labour Department inspector, said that Kingsland employed a casual worker from 4 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. on Fridays, with an hour off for tea, and from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Saturdays. The man was paid £1 a week less tax.

Mr. Purnell (for Kingsland): £1 a week!

Mr. McGregor: I will amend that; £1 for eight hours. Mr. Purnell said tho question was purely one of law but it was of great importance to all employers to whom the Shops and Offices Act applied. The onus was on tho department to satisfy the Court that the Act either expressly or by inference compelled an employer to pay a minimum wage of £2 in any one week to a casual employee. The proposition set up by the department was that even if a casual worker was employed for one hour in any one week he must be paid £2, Mr. Purnell continued. There were never any prosecutions on the same basis under tho previous Act and nothing had been woven into the amending Act to justify the present interpretation of it. He pointed out that tiie award provided for payment of a easual worker at 2s Od an hour with a minimum of three hours. A worker employed three days a week was to be deemed a weekly band. Mr. K. A. loung, on behalf of the Hairdressers’ Association, said that on the Labour Department's interpretation, if a man was employed for one hour he must get £2. That man could make £lfi a day by going from shop to shop.

Mr. Bailey argued that the Act overruled the award.

The Magistrate said the statute could be made to read as common sense or to give a reductio ad absurduin. Although the argument of tiie department was subtle, it could not be sustained. The section of the Act could only apply to weekly, as opposed to casual, employees. The legislation obviously intended to leave casual employees to the award relative to each trade.