After the Court had continued to insert the preference clause in its awards, in spite of the broad hint given by the Legislature in altering the Act’s title, some employers in the colony decided to see if the Supreme Court could do something to help them to have the practice stopped. Although the Act specially provides that none of its awards shall be appealed against or reviewed on any account whatever, a firm of plumbers and gas-fitters applied to the Supreme Court at Christchurch for a mandamus to forbid the Court giving preference to unionists. Mr. Justice Denniston, presiding in the Supreme Court, dismissed the motion, holding that the Court could do as it thought fit. When the employers took the case to the Court of Appeal, they found that it was unanimous in supporting Mr. Justice Denniston. Mr. Justice Williams, as a member of the Court of Appeal, said that “the Arbitration Court has jurisdiction to decide a dispute in such a manner as it considers just. The Act confers no status on workmen who are not members of a union. It was not intended that they should be represented, nor did it contemplate that a decision giving preference to unionists should affect any legal right of non-unionist workmen. The non-unionist has no legal right to demand employment. He can sell his labour on what terms and at what prices he chooses, provided that he can find an employer able and willing to accept his terms; but he has no right to demand that there shall be an employer able and willing to accept his terms.” It should be stated, however, that the Act now takes cognisance of unorganised work-people. It is provided that any non-unionist working for an employer bound by an award must also be bound by the same award, and is liable to be fined if he breaks it.
But preference is only one of the complicated controversial problems the Court has been called upon to deal with. On one occasion it was asked by a Miners’ Union to abolish the contract system. It decided that it was not justified in making a radical change in the manner in which employers preferred to conduct their businesses, unless the party which desired the change proved by preponderating evidence that it was necessary in the interests of justice and was fair and equitable. The union, in this case, it was held, had not brought forward the required
