REDUCTION OF HOURS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 15 June 1936, Page 12

REDUCTION OF HOURS

CHANGES IN WORKING WEEK THE ARBITRATION ACT AND AFTERWARDS (STICIALLT WftlTTSir JOB, THI PBEBS.) [By G. W. BAGLEY ] 11. The passing of the industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act in 1894 had a profound effect upon the limitation of working hours in New Zealand, as it placed in the hands of the workers themselves the power of initiating any movement for the reduction of hours. In setting ‘up the Court of Arbitration the act not only gave the court power to prescribe shorter hours, but enabled workers to register themselves as a union and bring their trade within the scope of the act. This was obviously a great advance, for it offered a direct method of securing reforms instead of the former cumbersome and expensive method of pressing for special legislation. Strangely enough, the work of fixing hours was not left entirely to the Arbitration Court after 1894. The Government itself still continued to bring down amending legislation of both general and special types, fixing the maximum hours of work, the times of closing shops, officers and factories, and rates of pay. But this legislation was easily fitted into the main body of industrial laws and regulations, and while the Court was bound to observe it as a minimum, it was able to go beyond the statute if it thought fit. Arbitration made Compulsory The chief feature of the New Zealand Arbitration Act which distinguished it from the later measures of other countries was that it aimed at compulsory rather than optional arbitration. It is claimed that a New Zealand bill was first drafted by the Hon. T. W. Hislop, a member of the Atkinson Ministry, about 1889, but it seems probable that this measure did not contain the compulsory feature which the Hon. W. Pember Reeves considered essential. It is also stated that the Premier of South Australia, Mr Kingston, endeavoured to bring into operation a compulsory system of arbitration in 1890. He appears to have hesitated, however, in prescribing direct compulsion and provided in his bill for optional arbitration in the first instance, but gave power, with the consent of Parliament, to declare for compulsion when thought necessary. Even with this modification, Mr Kingston was unsuccessful, and the bill that was passed became an entirely optional act, like those in other parts of the world. Mr Reeves’s bill was passed three tines in the Lower House, in 1892, 1893 and 1894, but was rejected in the Legislative Council in the first two years because of its compulsory feature. After the parliamentary elections of 1893, when the Government was returned with an increased majority, the Legislative Council passed the measure. During the three and a-half years in which its fate was in suspense the bill neither roused the least

enthusiasm nor attracted very much attention. In the words of Mr Reeves, “It did not awaken a tithe of the interest and energy expended over a bill for closing shops on one half-holiday in each week, and only once in Parliament was a debate upon it listened to, by half the House.” Difficulties of Application While it took three years for Mr Reeves to have his bill passed, it took another five years for its application to be defined upon practical and universal lines. New Zealand in 1895 presented great difficulties with its sharply defined geographical devisions. A long string of settlements scattered up and down an archipelago, 1100 miles from end to end, and cut off from each other by mountains and sea channels, had become the cradles of local conditions and customs which perplexed those who sought to consolidate the industrial legislation into an easily-administered whole. In 1900, however, the legislature ventured to give the Court of Arbitration power to make awards apply to trade everywhere in the colony. A little later it was provided that awards must be obeyed by nonunion as well as by union workers in the trades to which they apply. Having thus reached the stage at which its decisions governed the trade rather than the individuals (workers or employers) engaged in that trade, the Court was now in a position to make decisions which had virtually legislative effect. The reduction of hours in any trade became not only a benefit for those who had applied for the reduction, but a mandatory provision for all workers likely to be engaged at any time in that employment. Initiative Left to Workers In particular trades, henceforth, the fixation of maximum working hours became a matter in which it was open for the workers themselves to take the initiative by laying their claims before the Court. The popularity of this method of securing industrial reforms increased as its assurance of direct results became more widely known, until today practically every major trade, and a good number of very minor ones, are regulated by an award of the Arbitration Court. For the cases not covered by awards, or in which it was felt desirable to have some stronger authority, further legislation was enacted. The two main forms of legislation were the series of amendments to the Factories Act and to the Shops and Shop Assistants Act. In 1901 the Factories Act was consolidated and amended. Its most important provision, was that extending to all male workers, except in certain trades, the maximum of 48 hours a week. For women workers the maximum was reduced to 45. This act has been altered less than any other of the labour laws, and its provisions are in force to-day in practically the same form. Further Legislative Changes In 1904 a law was passed enforcing the closing of city shops, except refreshment rooms, at 6 p.m., with a late night extending to 9 o’clock. This act created such uproar that it was later repealed, but it was re-enacted with more exemptions in 1920. In 1907 the provision of a weekly halfholiday, from 2 o’clock, was extended to hotel workers, but no attempt was made to regulate hours of work until 1910, when a maximum of 62 and 58 hours a week was provided for men and women workers respectively. The hours for restaurants were at the same time fixed at 62 and 52 for men and women.

The 48-hour week was extended to shop assistants as recently as 1920, when a reduction from 52 was carried out by statute. In the following year this was extended to hotels and restaurants. In 1920 also, power was given to the Arbitration Court, when fixing the hours of shop assistants in an award, to fix the closing hours of the shops in the trade affected, and this special jurisdiction covered all shops in the trade, whether they employed assistants or not. Seven years later, however, this power was limited to the main centres only. In most trades even the 48-hour week has now become a thing of the past. Successive awards by the Arbitration Court have gradually introduced the principle of an eighthour day and five and a-half days a week, making a weekly total of 44 hours which applies to the majority of trades and to general labourers.