disputes between Trades Unions and Employers’ Associations. It took no notice whatever of disputes between employers and bodies of men who were not legally associated. Mr. Reeves believed that disputes of that nature were not large enough to call for State interference. He could not see how an award would be enforced against nebulous clusters and mere shifting groups of units, and he provided that although an employer might be the unit on one side, only a union must be the recognised unit on the other.
The Act divides the colony into industrial districts. In each district a Board of Conciliation, composed of equal numbers of employers and workers, with an impartial chairman, may be set up. At the request of any party to an industrial dispute, the Board is to call the other parties before it, and, after hearing the case, to make a recommendation, which may or may not be accepted by the parties to the dispute. Each Board has full power to take evidence and compel attendance, but its decision is a recommendation, not an award.
If the recommendation is not accepted, either party to the dispute may appeal to the Arbitration Court, which is a tribunal. It consists of a president, who must be a judge of the Supreme Court, and two assessors. One of these is elected by associations of employers, the other by a federation of Trades Unions. The Court is unfettered by precedent and it settles its own procedure. Its awards have the same force as decisions of the Supreme Court. There are therefore many Boards of Conciliation, but only one Court of Arbitration.
The Act, as its first title announces, deliberately encourages workers to organise. At the same time it deprives them of the right to strike. “When, in obedience to the law,” Mr. Reeves said, “they renounce striking and register as industrial unions, it does not seem amiss that they should receive some special consideration. Their exertions and outlay in successfully conducting arbitration cases benefit non-unionists as well as themselves, though the non-unionists have done nothing to help them. Non-unionists must get the same pay as unionists, and unionist strikes are abolished.”
