HOLIDAY ORDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 294, 11 December 1943, Page 6

HOLIDAY ORDER

A BREACH ALLEGED "GROSS INTERFERENCE" (P;A.) WELLINGTON, this day. Alleging that the recentlyannounced decision of Cabinet granting a five-day paid holiday period to all workers not otherwise entitled to paid annual holidays in the coming holiday season is a breach of the stabilisation regulations, and quoting the expressed view of the Court of Arbitration in support of the allegation, a statement has been handed to the Press by the secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, Mr. C. G. Camp.

He says the Minister of Labour specifically referred to workers in heavy industries as comprising the majority of the employees not having the benefit of a paid annual holiday, and adds: "The Minister has either conveniently overlooked a number of very obvious facts or else has been incorrectly informed on the terms of employment of many workers who will now benefit from the decision. Facts which have vital bearing on the point at issue are, firstly, that workers whose terms of employment do not include provision of paid holidays are generally compensated by payment of a relatively higher hourly rate of wages under their particular award or industrial agreement; secondly, that the new regulations constitute an actual breach of the Economic Stabilisation Emergency Regulations, 1942, and this has been authorised by Cabinet for a lesser period of duty.

Wage Bill Up By £750,000 "Workers in the industries affected are to receive an aggregate sum equivalent to that payable if they had worked full time. Thus the real wage rate will have been increased by £750,000 per annum, and a breach of the stabilisation provisions will result. The Court of Arbitration has been entrusted with the responsibility of deciding whether any conditions arising out of industrial employment shall be varied, and only recently, under date December 7, the registrar of the Court, writing to the Employers-' Federation on the terms of a proposed award, observed: 'The Court has examined the terms of settlement and notes that the only alteration to the existing Wellington award is a provision for five days' annual leave. In this connection I am directed to advise that the Court considers holidays to be a principal condition of and pursuant to regulation 38 of the Economic Stabilisation Emergency Regulations, 1942, the Court is debarred from varying the holiday provision unless for the purpose of adjusting an anomaly, it will, therefore, be necessary for the parties to prove that a variation is necessary to adjust an anomaly.'

A "Radical Departure" "It is clear that no such radical departure from well settled conditions would be countenanced by the Court except to remedy some departure from the accepted rule. There has never yet been an accepted rule that hourly workers should be granted annual holidays. The Minister's statement omits to mention that employers' organisations were never at any stage consulted in the matter. Rather has it been stressed that the principle of holidays with pay has now been accepted'by employers generally in New Zealand a statement which is rather at variance with fact and which, on behalf of the employers of this Dominion is officially denied.

"This action on the part of the Government is a gross interference with the established code and can only be construed as a deliberate attempt to confer on the workers of this country privileges which the Court of Arbitration, in its discretion, did not consider necessary."