Charged With Paying Employees Too Much

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 62, 16 March 1944, Page 5

Charged With Paying Employees Too Much

FINED FOR TECHNICAL BREACH ONLY (Per Press Association.) INVERCARGILL, March 15. Charges of breaches of the Stabilisation. Regulations were made against the firm of John. Ednioud, Ltd., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day. It was stated that three of the firm’s employees had been paid in excess of the basic rate and it was an offence under the regulations for an employer to do this and for an employee to accept. The firm was short-slaffod and the wages had been increased to make up for the extra work. An increased bonus had also been granted and this was an offence under the regulations, too. Counsel for the firm (Mr. G. C. Cruickshank) stated that two of the men involved were now doing work that had been done in the past by .11 men and that a case should have been brought against the employees, too. lie did uot r iggest any prosecution of the employees but it was they who received the extra wages and yet the firm alone was prosecuted. He contended that the department in its enlightenment had chosen to prosecute the employers alone and was not unbiassed in this respect. The magistrate (Mr. C. Abernothy) remarked that it soemed that both employer and employees should be charged and the matter left to the Court to decide, who was to blame. In rho general principle both were severally liable and should be severally charged. Ho would treat the matter as a technical breach, he said. The firm was convicted and flnod 10s and costs 10s on each of the three charges and solicitor’s fee £2 2s to be paid in the cane of charges concerning two of the employees.