ARBITRATION COURT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2456, 22 March 1909, Page 5

ARBITRATION COURT.

BREACHES OF AWARD

(Frees Association.) WELLINGTON, March 20. At tho Arbitration Court yesterday further evidence was taken in a case in which W. G. Parsons was charged with a breach of the inference clause of the carpenters’ award. On the previous day Parsons had admitted employing certain workmen for special purposes. These men were not unionists, but reference to the union’s employment book showed there were at the time no competent unionists out of work. Now Parsons said he had examined the book tho day before the employing the men in question. Judge Sim said Parsons’ evidence conflicted with that given previously, which was that he had examined the union’s book the day after employing the men. Tho majority of the Court found that a breach had occurred, Parsons being fined £2. Mr. S. Brown, employers’ representative, said that* his opinion was that no man should be convicted on the evidence of the employment book. The facts given therein were not sufficient to indicate where workmen could be found. The book should contain much fuller information, and the secretary' of the union should assist employers in searching for competent union men out of employment. Further evidence was taken in the charge agains Humphries Bros, of a breach of the preference clause of the carpenters’ award. G. Humphries said, liis brother, L. Humphries, at present in England, had engaged the men in question. The case was ordered to stand over till L. Humphries returns. His Honor said it seemed to him to come back to the same question, that einployers might save themselves a great deal of trouble by declining to employ men until they had satisfied themselves the applicants were members of the union. Mr. Grenfell, _ who appeared for Mr. Humphries, said it placed an unduly heavy burden on employers to ask them to search for unionists when competent _ men were waiting at tlieir doors. Not only m New Zealand, but elsewhere, first-class workers did not require to be bolstered up by unions, or have their rights maintained by them, and theieiore declined to join unions. His Honor asked if ill’. Grenfell thought workers would be better off without unions. Mr Grenfell said lie believed they would. Yorkers had in the past ground for complaint perhaps, but the great body of employers treated their men fairly. His onor said if so Wellington was a fortunate place. Human nature was different here, from what it was m other parts of th world, if employers had reached that stage of perfection. Julius Adolphus Lutz, hotelkeeper, was convicted of a breach of the cooks’ and waiters’ award, for employing a man as porter and not paying him a porter’s wages. The defence was that the man had been engaged not as a porter but as a rouse-about. No fine was inflicted.