CONCILIATION COUNCILS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 14

CONCILIATION COUNCILS.

EMPLOYERS' OBJECTIONS. AUCKLAND, September 1. At to-day's annual meeting of the Auckland Employers' Association strong resistance -was shown, towards the Conciliation Councils being allowed to sup-ereede the Arbitration Coirrt. The executive in its annual report' said the setting up of councils for separate disputes and the methods of procedure under \he jurisdiction of commissioners bad a detrimental effect upon industries. " Many conditions," the report went on, " have been allowed to be embodied in agreements, and thereby subsequently included in awards, which are cure to prejudice both employers and workers in the near futtfre. The tendency on the part of the commissioners is to settle disputes, irrespective of what the ultimate results may be ; hence the many mistakes that are being made for want of more careful consideration of what is justly due to the employers. The Court of Arbitration has veoenfely made it quite clearly understood that the time has arrived for * calling a halt ' in' the matter of increasing wages and decreasing the hours of labour, i Consequently, when so-called disputes are now referred to the court for settlement the unions are required to produce incon- ; trovertible evidence to show why any alterations should be made in existing , awards. This wise determination of the j court is in many instances entirely ignored when agreements are being made by the Counci'e of Conciliation. Your executive ! therefore feels that it cannot too strongly , urg3 the necessity for extreme care being taken by all employers when nominating their assessors, and that no agreement should 'be entered upon which is not reasonably satisfactory to all employers concerned, it being considered desirable that, all such cases should be referred to the Arbitration Court. Another cause of | complaint arising out of the administraj tion of the statute in question is the ■; action of the Labour Department's officials in urging upon magistrates the desirability of inflicting very heavy penalties for comparatively trivial offences, many employers by, these means being fined as high as £10 for each so-called breach." Mr Charles Rhcdes (vice-president) spoke lin a somewhat similar strain. "It has 1 been suggested," he said, " that the Arbitration Coui-t may before long be superseded in favour of Conciliation CommiiSsionere, but I think that any such proposal shcuid be resisted to the utmost. The Conciliation Commissioners may be successful in settling man}' disputes, but if it wez*e decided to have no court of appeal they would instantly find their positions a thousand times more difficult, and liticants would feel that instead of a concilia- j tor they had in a Layman commissioner an embryo dictator, whose mailed fist could rarely be disguised under a velvet glove. During the present p«iiod of depression ' would in any case be an ill-judged time to abolish the Arbitration Court, unless the whole act went.'' I

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