Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9151, 21 May 1908, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

AN interesting decision was given by the Arbitration Court in Auckland on Tuesday. Several Waihi miners having been absent from work through illness the Company replaced them by others, who had already worked their shift, and only paid them the ordinary rate of wages. The Company was proceeded against by the Union for not having paid overtime rates, but pleaded that it was the custom for sick men to be temporarily replaced in the manner objected to as otherwise they would be liable to dismissal, since •it was impossible to find casual hands to take their places. The Court held that as the award provided expressly that time and a-quarter should be paid for all overtime work done in the mines or batteries with certain specified exceptions, any custom to pay for such, work at a lower rate was an indirect contravention of the award. The reason for requiring the work, to be done did not affect the question. If a worker at the request of his employer worked overtime, he must be paid for it according to the provisions of the award. The Union had acquiesced in the practice and had made no objection until the cases had been brought before the Court, and therefore no attempt would be made to go further “back than the present cases, which would be considered as brought as a means of obtaining an interpretation of the award. The Company was therefore only ordered to pay costs and expenses of witnesses. “Our decision does not, however,” concluded His Honour, “cover the case of a worker, who at the request of a fel-low-worker takes his place during his temporary absence for the whole or part of his shift, and in this way works beyond the prescribed shift hours. Such a case appears to be different from cases such as the present, where workers are directed by their employers to continue at work beyond the shift hours. ’ ’ Tha effect of the decision is, therefore, that though an employee may make a private arrangement with a friend to do his work withoilt any necessity for overtime being paid the employer who orders such an arrangement must pay overtime. The case seems to be one in which the fixity of written rules leads to inconvenience and the anxiety of the Union to get the strict letter of the law obeyed may lead to workers who are temporarily absent through sickness being replaced immediately by permanent, hands in order to avoid the difficulties arising from private understandings as to substitutes.

IN a recent letter to the Post Mr D. M’Laren, a well-known labour leader, makes some interesting comments on the Arbitration Act. He xemarks that when Mr Millar’s amending Bill was before the country last session the representatives of the trades unions told the Government that coercive measures would not secure the confidence, of the labour party. A demonstration of the futility of such measures has been given by the Blackball strike, but it has apparently been useless as the Government now talked of making provision to make aiding and abetting of strikes illegal. Mr M’Laren maintains that no law can be passed, to make it illegal to feed the wives and children of strikers, and proceeds to give his idea of a rational system of conciliation as follows : “The providing of the most prefect machinery for bringing the disputants together in conference, enabling the fullest investigations to be made by independent adjudicators, applying the speediest methods for conciliation possible in the treatment of minor differences and the minimising of force when the parties are disposed to reject submitted terms of settlement.” This statement is satisfactory enough and it will be interesting to remember it when Mr Millar introduces his amending legislation next session. The last Bill prepared by Mr Millar proposed an excellent arangement. for conciliation, but it was bitterly opposed by Mr M’Laren’s Council, as no doubt any'new scheme will bo, however equitable it may be.