GRANTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1927, Page 9

GRANTED.

MEN'S DEMANDS.

Engineering Trade Secures 44-Hour Week. IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. (Bt Cable.—rress Association.—Copyright.) (Heor-ived lU.. o .' l p.m. 1 MELBOURNE, this day. A majority judgment of the Federal Arbitration ('curt awarded the 44-hour?' week in the engineering; industry. The judgment is highly important. as it to !-oine extent determines the standard hour- of labour in Au>lralian industries. Mr. Justiee Dethridge. the Chief -Judge of the Federal Arbitration Court, in delivering judgment, said the State laws had purported to make the .-hotter week general for most workers in New South I Wales and Queensland, and the State ] Arbitration awards had had a similar 1 effect in West Australia. The 44-hours' ! week existed \ ery largely in New Zea--1 land and received support from men I who wore" not themselves meinbi : - of the wage-earning clashes.

I, The conclusion could not In- evaded that the continuance of the 4! i -hours' week was likely to l>e accompanied by ' increased slackening and reduction of output certain classes of workers, which would largely offset the output derived from the extra four hours' work per week. The Court was not going to lie influenced by political considerations, but it could not ignore economic conditions merely because they were created partly or wholly by political or fiovernmental action, even though that motion might be considered by some people to have been ill-advised or too far-reaching.

Judge Detheridge

In any case the Court could not prevent any pei>ou or body or any State Government or Legislature from continuing to grant a 44-hours' week to its own employees, therefore it ordered the 44-hours' week to be granted the engineering industrv.

The judge added that it must be taken as a guiding line that the judgment indicates the probable course of the Court in future applications.