I.—9a.

40

[E, J. CAREY.

representatives will give way on the Board where men in an independent position, such as those connected with the Conciliation Boards at present, would not do so. In clause 20 I think the Government have not abided by the wishes of the workers, because there will now be greater difficulty in appealing against the recommendations of the Industrial Councils than.there has been in the case of the Conciliation Boards. Clause 20 of the Bill provides for a second ballot, or practically that which is a ballot, for an appeal from the Industrial Council to the Arbitration Court, In the present Act the union may, after a meeting called for the purpose b}' the executive, refer the recommendations of the Board on to the Court, At present one employer may do that, or an employers' association may do it. If the Bill becomes law the union will have to take the same ballot as is necessary to create an Industrial Council. We have all along asked for the abolition of the cumbersome ballot system, and yet we have another thrust upon us here. As far as my intelligence guides me I think one employer may refer the matter on after the Industrial Council has disposed of it, as he is able to do at present from the Conciliation Board. I notice according to clause 11 that the parties to any disputes before the Industrial Councils shall be industrial unions, industrial associations, or employers, and clause 20 says that any party, after a meeting has been called by resolution, may refer the case on to the Court. I do not think any employer who is a party to it need call a special meeting to refer it on. I take it that under the Bill any employer who is not a member of an association may ask for leave to refer the matter on to the Court in the same manner as he is now privileged to do. I want to give evidence on behalf of my union with regard to a proposed new clause passed by the Trades Conference and not embodied in this Bill. It is a suggestion of the Conference. 5. Have 3 r ou a copy of it?— Yes. " That it be not within the power of any Conciliation Board or Arbitration Court, when making aft award or industrial agreement, to prescribe in such an award or industrial agreement hours of labour for any class of workers in any industry in excess of the hours prescribed by Acts of Parliament for workers in that industry. Neither shall the Board or Court have power to make any provisions in their awards and industrial agreements which will deprive the workers coming under the scope of those awards and agreements of any holidays or other privileges which are granted to those workers by Act of Parliament," I will give you the reason why my union is so keen on the matter. We find that under the Shops and Offices Act it is provided that shop-assistants shall only work fifty-two hours a week. The Wellington Board of Conciliation in its recommendations in our case prescribed a week of sixty-five hours, or thirteen hours in excess of this Act. This was pointed out to the Conference at Dunedin, and the need of it was so apparent to all that the resolution was passed almost without discussion. We therefore ask for a new clause in this Bill—the Minister of Labour some time back promised that it would be done—stating that it shall not be within the power of the Board or the Court to fix the hours of labour in recommendations or awards in excess of the hours already fixed by an Act of Parliament, and that it shall not be within the power of the Board or Court to take away any holiday privileges granted by Act of Parliament. The necessity for that must be apparent to members of this Committee when, as has been shown in our case, five citizens of Wellington can upset the intentions of members of Parliament, The members of Parliament in their wisdom have limited the total number of hours for shop-assistants to fifty-two hours, but the Board has extended our hours by thirteen, and for eight months the shop-assistants in our trade have been working thirteen hours a week in excess of those prescribed by the Shops and Offices Act. I refer particularly to waiters in restaurants. In all other parts of the colony they work, fiftytwo hours, but in Wellington, because we have taken advantage of the Act and gone to the Court, we have thirteen hours extra imposed on us. That I think was an end never contemplated by any of the well-wishers of the Arbitration Act. I want now to refer back to clause 21, and my union and the Parliamentary Committee are at one on this matter. This is a clause that greatly affects the members of my union, and I would like to give a little history as to how it affects it. Under the present Act a recommendation by the Board operates as an industrial agreement. When the Board makes that recommendation the agreement binds only the parties who are parties before the Board. If an industrial agreement is entered into between the parties and is filed with the Registrar, that agreement only binds the parties to the agreement. We found that within a month after our agreement came into force there were four or five employers who were not bound by the provisions of the award, and we found also that what we believed to be chicanery was being made use of. For instance, Mr. Godber, whom we cited as James Godber, and who has one shop in Cuba Street and another on Lambton Quay, was a party to the agreement. He somehow got to know that if he could put his business into somebody else's hands he would no longer be a party to the agreement, so he floated his concern into a company and James Godber is the managing director. Mrs. Godber and two or three members of the family are the members of the company, and the result is that Mr. Godber is not under the agreement as he was formerly. Mr. Mawson, who runs a business opposite to Mr. Godber's place in Cuba Street, is compelled to compete with him and to pay as much as ss. or 10s. a week per employee in excess of what is paid by Mr. Godber. Therefore we ask that clause 21 of the proposed Act be made more mandatory. We ask that the word "may" shall be struck out in the fifteenth line, and the word "shall" be substituted for it. We'think that in all cases where the majority of the. workers are employed in any industry governed by an award, the Court should on all occasions bind any employer who is not a party to the agreement, but who becomes subsequently an employer in the industry. We think this should be done primarily to restrict unfair competition such as is going on in Wellington at the present time. My union also are afraid of legal technicalities, and would like, wherever an industrial agreement is mentioned in clause 21, the words "or recommendations of the Conciliation Board " added. They consider.that the recommendations of the Board, although operating as an industrial agreement, if legally argued in Court by solicitors would lead to trouble in proving that they were an industrial agreement. Therefore we want to guard against any such technicalities of this kind, and think that all employers should be bound by such an agreement, as it is only just to the employers and to the members of the union. I want now to give evidence on behalf of my Committee in reference to clause 47—compulsory contributions. We believe that if this is