R v Foster [1944] HCA 22

69 C.L.R.] OF AUSTRALIA. 299

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA] THE KING

AGAINST

FOSTER AND OTHERS ;

Ex parte CROWN CRYSTAL GLASS COMPANY PROPRIETARY LIMITED.

Women's Employment—Jurisdiction of Women's Employment Board—" Work" — ¥. (, or A Actual operation of employee previously performed in Australia—Product of 1944. labour not previously produced—Women's Employment Act 1942 (No. 55 of = "~ 1942), Schedule, regs. 6 (1), (4)-(8)—S.R. 1943 No. 75—1943 No, 251. Sypvey,

The word "work" in reg. 6 of the Women's Employment Regulations refers 4"9- 14 22- to the particular Jabour or operations performed by individual workers and Tatham ©, not, in the case of a manufacturing process, to the whole process of producing MeTiernan and the commodity manufactured. If the work performed by an employee is Williams JJ- some mechanical or other operation that was done in Australia before the

present war, such work is nob "work . . . which immediately prior to

the outbreak of the present war was not performed in Australia by any person "

within the meaning of reg. 6 (1) (c) of the Women's Employment Regulations

merely because the employee is performing that operation in order to manufac-

ture an article which had not been manufactured in Australia before the war.

Orpver Nist for prohibition.

An application under reg. 78 of the Women's Employment Regula- tions was made on 2nd February 1944 by the Australian Glass Workers' Union to the Women's Employment Board constituted under those Regulations for a determination of the rates of payment and the hours and conditions to be observed in respect of female employees employed by Crown Crystal Glass Co. Pty. Ltd. on the work specified in the application.

It was alleged in the application that the company: (a) had since 2nd March 1942 employed and continued to employ females on work which was usually performed by males, and (b) had employed