PRIVATE HOTELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 8

PRIVATE HOTELS.

DOMINION AWARD. WIDE SCOPE OF DEFINITION. BO ARDIN G HOUSES INCLUDED. The definition of a private hotel as an establishment providing accommodation for five or more lodgers is .a clause that will bring hundreds, possibly thousands, of private boarding establishments under the scope of the New Zealand private hotels' employees' award. In tile past the number of boarders required to bring an establishment within the award was as ranch as three times the number in the new award. Long passages are devoted to an outline of conditions governing holidays, special cases being cited to cover what might be termed the "rush" periods in' private hotels. Time arfd a half has to be paid for statutory holidays,»this rate including the proportionate daily wage and board and lodging allowance customarily payable. There is provision for one week and one day annual holiday on full pay. Overtime is to be paid for at time and a half. A 44-hour week is provided. The minimum weekly rates of pay are based on the number of hands employed. In the kitchen, for instance, chief cooks range from £5 5/ (male) and £4 14/ (female), where six or more hands are employed, down to £3 2/ (male) and £2 lfi/ (female), where two hands are employed, and £2 9/0 (male) and £2 3/0 (female), where the worker is alone in the kitchen. Other kitchen workers are paid on similar sliding scales. A weekly allowance of 5/ is payable to the kitchen hand attending to the boiler. New Scale of Wages. Other classes of workers are to be paid as follow: —Waiter, £2 17/ a week; h6ad waitress, £1 10/; other waitresses, £1 12/6; housemaids, £1 12/6; pantrymen, £2 7/6; porters, £2 9/6 (night), £2 7/6 (day); general hands, £2 7/6 (male), £2" 1/ (female); laundresses, £1 15/; linen maids, £1 13/6; relieving maids, £1 12/6. A special clause permits the employment as waitresses or housemaid waitresses of female probationers for a period not exceeding six months, at a minimum wage of not less than 17/0, in the proportion of not more than one probationer to each three employees engaged in'these duties. When board is not provided for any worker he or she shall. be ' paid £1 a week above the ordinary rate, and unless meals are provided for employees on their day off they shall be paid a further, sum of 3/ for the day. Where lodging is not provided for any worker an allowance of 10/ a week shall be paid. The award lays down strict conditions Regarding the accommodation of employees, and adds that night porters not living in shall.be provided, with two substantial meals each day, and paid an allowance Of 10/ a week. * In .1921 the Shops and Offices. Act provided that any building accommodation which provided for 20 or more boarders was to he recognised as a private hotel. In 1928 an amendment reduced the number from 20 to 16, and later in the same year a further amendment was made making the Act simply apply to premises - where there was accommodation for 15 or more boarders. Now, under the latest legislation, a private hotel is set ont as any building where there are five or more boarders, or wh&\e two or more persons, other than members of the owner's family, are employed.