DINNER PLATES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 770, 17 September 1929, Page 7

DINNER PLATES

WASHING UP NOT PANTRYMAID’S WORK INTERESTING TEST CASE A pan try maid who washes plates used in the dining room of a restaurant or tearooms has to be paid a kitchenhand’s wages. This is the effect of the Arbitration Court judgment on appeal, f which upsets the decision of Mr. Wyvern Wilson. S.M., on the point. The appeal was made by the Inspector of Awards, Mr. G. F. Grieve, against the magistrate’s ruling dismissing a prosecution brought against William F. Prior. A £lO penalty was sought against Prior for employing a worker washing up dishes and not paying her kitchenmaid’s wages. The magistrate dismissed the prosecution on the ground that it was customary ! for pantrymaids in restaurants to wash up dining room plates and therefore the award was not inconsistent with this custom. TEST CASE Declaring that the appeal is really a te&t case, Mr. Justice Blair states that the decision is important because by the award the whole scale of the wages in the kitchen depends on The number of employees in it. The judgepoints out that the only evidence that it is customary for pantrymaids to wash dining room plates is the practice in Auckland; there is no testimony that this custom applies to other centres. The proper way of ascertaining whether an employee is deemed to be a kitchen hand, the judge says, is whether he or she is doing things defined as kitchen work under the award. The magistrate states that plate washing is done in the pantry, but the judge holds that it is the work done and not where it is performed that is the test of the award.

"We cannot escape the conclusion, therefore,” the judge concludes, “that when it is admitted that an employee washes dinner plates she is ‘cleaning plates’ within the artificial meaning of kitchen work in the award.” Mr. Schmitt dissents from the finding. He holds that if the cleaning of plates has become a custom by acquiescence on the part of workers, it should not be disturbed. He thinks the appeal should not be upheld. The case was remitted to the magistrate with the intimation a breach should have been recorded and to impose thd penalty.