FORTY-HOUR WEEK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 5

FORTY-HOUR WEEK.

APPEALS FOR PATIENCE

TRADES HALL COMMENT. Comment was made this morning by the . president of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council, Mr. W. Miller, and the secretary, Mr. H. Campbell, 011 the appeals by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, and the president of the New Zealand Labour party, the Rev. Clyde Carr, M.P., for patience amongst the workers. Messrs. Miller and Campbell, in a joint statement, declared that unionists were not dissatisfied in any way with the efforts which the Government was making to improve their conditions generally, but they were uneasy as a result of what they considered to be inconsistencies and anomalies in the decisions of the Arbitration Court with, respect to applications for the 44-liour week and for exemption from the shorter week. Workers who knew the conditions in the various industries and had been refused the 40-hour week felt that they were just as much entitled to shorter hours as many other workers who had been successful in their applications. It was the apparent inequality of the treatment that y the Court had meted out to workers that had caused dissatisfaction, which was such that union officials were becoming alarmed. The Trades and Labour Council intended , at its meeting 011 Thursday week to discuss the position and to make recommendations to the Government that were calculated to relieve the tension. "The workers are not dissatisfied with the Government, and are anxious to do nothing which will embarrass it in any way," added Mr. Campbell, "but they want an assurance that their ideas of justice from the Court will be met." Another union secretary said there was a misconception as to the attitude of the unions, which fully endorsed everything the Government had done. Because the unions criticised the Arbitration Court—the prerogative of organised Labour—it was wrong to think they were disloyal. Unionists, and especially union secretaries, were men who had spent a lifetime in the Labour movement, and they recognised that what had been done by the Government was without parallel in the world. "We are satisfied that the legislation that has been put through in the interests of the workers is all to the credit of the Government, and it is astonishing what • has been done in such a short time," he added. "The main cause of the dissatisfaction is the number of exemptions that have been granted from the 40-hour week, and, further, it is contended that even the intention of the legislation has been misinterpreted by the Court.

STOP-WORK MEETING. Auckland shipwrights held a brief stop-work meeting this morning. Although the employers were not notified what the subject of discussion was, it is understood that it was the question of hours of work. The men were absent for only about an hour.