Australian Timber Workers' Union v Stewarts Limited [1936] HCA 18

72 HIGH COURT (1936.

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.]}

AUSTRALIAN TIMBER WORKERS' UNION . AppELiant ; INFORMANT,

AND

STEWARTS LIMITED 5 : é : . RESPONDENT. DEFENDANT,

ON APPEAL FROM A COURT OF PETTY SESSIONS OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

H.C. or A, Industrial Arbitration (Cth.)—Award—Breach—Unapprenticed boys—Prescribed

1936. rates of wages—Boy, not member of union.

on, The respondent did not pay to an unapprenticed boy employed by it the

peas o, minimum rate of wages prescribed by an award of the Commonwealth Court

of Conciliation and Arbitration for unapprenticed boys of his age. Both the pore eas informant union and the respondent were parties to the award, but the boy McTiernan JJ. was not a member of the union or otherwise a party to the dispute settled by

the award. On the hearing of the information charging the respondent with a breach of the award the logs of demand out of which the dispute settled by the award arose were not put in evidence. The information was dismissed.

Held that in the absence of evidence as to the ambit of the dispute the validity of the material clause of the award must be assumed ; upon the con- struction of the award, the material clause applied to all unapprenticed boys employed in the industry, whether members of the union or not, and, therefore, a breach of the award had been proved.

Metal Trades Employers Association v. Amalgamated Engineering Union, (1935) 54 C.L.R. 387, referred to.

Apprat, by way of case stated, from a Court of Petty Sessions of New South Wales.

In an information laid by John Culbert on behalf of the Australian 'Timber Workers Union, it was alleged that the defendant, Stewarts

55 C.L.R.] OF AUSTRALIA.

Ltd., did commit a breach of an award of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, by which both the union and the defendant were bound, in that the defendant did for the week ending 26th September 1935 employ and work at its place of business at Blacktown, New South Wales, an unapprenticed boy and did not pay to him the minimum rate of wages provided by the award to be paid to an unapprenticed boy of his age.