AWARD RULING

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20262, 3 August 1937, Page 8

AWARD RULING

WIDESPREAD EFFECTS. LEGISLATION EXPECTED. PROTECTION OF UNIONS, (By Telegrapn.— Association.) DUNEDIN, Monday. The opinion that immediate action would be taken by the Government to preserve the status quo of the Otago Clerical Workers’ Union and other clerical workers’ unions throughout New Zealand until the position could be remedied by legislation was expressed by Mr R. Herbert, secretary of the Otago Clerical Workers’ Union when commenting on the decision of the Court of Appeal. “The judgment given by the Appeal Court in this issue will, if allowed to stand, have far-reaching repercussions on the trade union movement, as we know it in New Zealand to-day,” Mr Herbert said. ‘For many years unions have been working under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which has been amended from time to time to suit the circumstances of the economic periods we have passed through, and at all times only one meaning has been given to the word ‘industry.’ This appears to be the vital word and the interpretation of it in the Court’s judgment differs from that which has been generally accepted in the past. For instance, if a carpenter were employed by any class of employer he was still a carpenter, no matter what the employer was engaged In outside the building industry. According to the Appeal Court’s ruling, however, a carpenter employed, for instance, by a manufacturing confectioner automatically becomes a confectionery worker by virtue of the fact that he is employed in the confectionery Industry. The same applies to drivers and other workers who have their trade unions and are working under awards of the Court of Arbitration.” “Null and Void.” If there were to he a transition stage In the transferring of workers from their various craft unions to industrial unions, as the judgment of the Court could only mean, Mr Herbert added, the Government could not sit idly by and see craft unions’ present legal status and awards taken from them the Appeal Court, thus leaving tnousands of workers without protection until such time as a new legal status could he adjusted. The judgment would certainly have a drastio effect on general clerical workers’ unions through New Zealand, as all awards they had secured would he null and void. The Otago union had, therefore, applied for provisional leave to appeal to the Privy Council against the Appeal Court’s Judgment and was now considering whether to take that step. ‘‘We confidently anticipate,” Mr Herbert said, ‘That the Government will take immediate action to preserve the status quo of clerical workers’ unions until the position can be remedied by legislation.”