CHRISTCHURCH PRIVATE HOTEL

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 58

CHRISTCHURCH PRIVATE HOTEL

EMPLOYEES. CHRISTCHUBGH, July 28. The judgment of the Arbitration Court in the private hotels dispute was received to-day. The judgment states that the employers before .the court did not form a clearly-defined class of boarding-house - keepers. The union suggested that the court should make an award -on the lines of the Dunedin award, but that award was based on an agreement of the parties The application for a renewal was refused, for the reason that the proprietors could not afford to pay the wages asked, and the position was the same in the present case. Even if they could afford to do so, it ffiis no reason why they should be compelled. No question of a living wage was involved, and except in special cases the court should not attempt to regulate the wages of such workers. By section 71 of "The Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1908," the Legislature had made it clear that the bulk of the domestic workers were outside the 6cope of the arbitration system, and in the case of tho.«e who came within it the court should only exercise its powers of regulation in special circumstaneee. The application for an award would be dismissed. , Mr M'Culiough, the workers' representative on the court, dissented from the judgment, stating that the decision made it possible for employers to sweat and underpay a large number of deserving men and women.