BSI Labourers Fined

For Breach of Contract

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Honiara. July 24.

A DECISION of some interest to BSIP residents was given recently by the Protectorate’s Judicial Commissioner (Mr. W. T. Charles) in a civil action bet ween the Commissioner of Works and 19 labourers for alleged breaches of written contracts of employment for six months.

At the end of May, thirteen of the de fendants complained that they were not issued with soap and tobacco and refused to work. They were informed that they were entitled to. and would be issued with, soap, but that they were not en titled to tobacco. The thirteen defendants left work on the following day.

The Judicial Commissioner in his judgment said that if soap had not been issued to the men, the Government had committed a breach of contract with them, but he considered it was a minor one, soap forming only a small part of the men’s remuneration. (The soap ration is one ounce per man per week.) He found that the thirteen men had repu diated their contracts.

Judgment was given against twelve of them for the sum of £1 each, and against the thirteenth, a boss boy, for £l/10/- The other six defendants had complained earlier in the month and had been told that the position would be rectified, but they had not received a soap ration. The action against these men therefore failed.

Interest for BSIP residents lies in the fact that by the Labour Regulations an employer must give a month’s notice to an employee unless he has committed some very serious fault, whereas labour can, and does, walk out without any notice at all, confident that no action will be taken against them. This is the first time that the position has been tested in the Court.