APPEAL ALLOWED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 27 July 1929, Page 8

APPEAL ALLOWED

AGAINST ARBITRATION COURT

WRONGFUL ALTERATION OF AWARD (By Telegraph—Press Association) WELLINGTON, 26th July. The Full Court delivered judgment in the' case Butt and others versus Frazer and others, holding that the appeal should be allowed and a writ of certiorari asked for by the appellants granted. The written judgments of Justices Myers, Herdman, Adams, Blair, and Smith were delivered by the Court, all holding that the Court of Arbitration had gone beyond its -jurisdiction when altering an award by the order complained of. Accordingly the whole order was quashed, but without any order as to costs. Arthur Edwin Butt and other tobacconists and the Dunedin Tobacconists’ Industrial Union of Employers moved to have the Dunedin, Oamaru, Gore and Invercargill tobacconists’ assistants’ award moved into the Supreme Court and certain parts thereof examined and ouashed by the Court. The Arbitration Court award wa§ made on 4th March, 1927, and by a subsequent order made on 12th March, 1229, the Arbitration Court altered the terms of the award to the effect that all persons employed t as assistants in hairdressers’ and tobacconists’ shops within the area affected bv the award must become - members of the Otago Hairdressers’s and Tobacconists' Assistants’ Industrial Union of Workers, and that all such assistants not becoming members of the union should lx> dismissed from their employ by such tobacconists and hairdressers. The employees attacked the alterations of the award on the grounds—(l) That thev did not consent to the order varying the award, and such consent is necessary by law; (2) the alterations are beyond the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Court (inter alia) because the provisions amouni to (ho creation of compulsory unionism: (3i the order places an unwarranted restriction on employers in the choice of employees.