AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 33, 13 June 1913, Page 6

AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT

UNION SECRETARY’S HIGHHANDED PROCEEDINGS. [Per Press Association.] Auckland, June 13. Justice Edwards delivered judgment in a Case brought against the Auckland Watersidors’ Union by two members, who alleged that the Union officials bad by intimidation prevented them from obtaining employment on the water front. The plaintiff’s were Joel Smith and James MiUor, and the defendant James Collet, secretary of the Union. Plaintiffs claimed £2OO and £250 damages respectively, and an injunction against the Union, which was not incorporated or registered under any law. His Honor said plaintiffs were employed on the Maheno because no less than eleven of the chosen gang failed to turn up. Certain n;embers of the Union took exception to the extra industry shown by the plaintiffs, and at a meeting in the absence of plaintiffs, and without evidence, fined Smith and Miller the amount earned by them on the Maheno. Such proceeding was void as being contrary to natural justice. The evidence was held to prove that both plaintiffs had been excluded from the watersiders’ waiting room and regarded as non-members, and both men, owing to preference being given to unionists, had been unable to obtain employment as waterside workers. His Honor found that the union, without any colour of right or authority, had penalised plaintiffs, who had not done anything of .which strictest unionists should disapprove. Defendant without a scintilla of right, gave employers of waterside workers notice that plaintiffs had ceased to be members of the union with the object of precluding the employers from employing such persons, and upon this notice employers were bound by the Act. His Honor assessed Miller’s damages at £55, and those of Smith, whose case was more serious, at £BO.