NOT JOURNEYMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 776, 24 September 1929, Page 16

NOT JOURNEYMAN

YOUTH’S CLAIM AGAINST PLUMBER FAILS Dismissing a claim for full journeyman plumbers’ wages made by a boy, who, while he was not an apprentice, was only 16 years of age, Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., gave it as his opinion that the boy would be quite incapable of doing, even inefficiently, any material part of the work of a plumber. The magistrate delivered his judgment in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The claim for £47 was made by Theodore William Munro (Mr. Tuck) against William Daubney. a plumber, of Henderson. In evidence it was stated that plaintiff, at his father’s request, had been employed by Daubney. His wages were - £ 1 a week, with one shilling an hour for the time he worked on Saturday afternoon. He was employed from April 2 until June 20, hut after the boy had been in defendant’s service for some time he applied to become apprenticed. He was then told that the apprenticeship quota was full and that he could not at that time be apprenticed. Defendant, hoping that the apprenticeship might be authorised, kept the boy until June 20, when the employment was terminated. Later action had been taken against defendant by the registrar of apprentices for employing an apprentice without submitting a contract within the prescribed time. Judgment was against defendant and the present action claimed the difference between the wages paid to the boy and a full journeyman’s wages at the rate of 2s 3d an hour for the full period of employment. “From the list of tasks given by plaintiff himself, I do not think it would justify a finding that plaintiff was doing a material part of the highly-skilled work of a journeyman plumber,” commented the magistrate, finding for defendant.