HOW MANY HOURS?

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21894, 22 September 1936, Page 10

HOW MANY HOURS?

" A PERSONAL ARGUMENT ADVANCED EXCHANGE IN CONCILIATION COUNCIL A discussion in the Conciliation Council yesterday took a personal, though not acrimonious, turn, when Mr R. Nairn (as an employer of gardeners) asked Mr J. Roberts (a workers’ representative) how many hours a week Mr Roberts himself worked. Mr Roberts, with some show of feeling, supplk *. the information. Mr W. Bayliss, a nurseryman, contended that it was impossible to reduce the hours of nursery employees from 48 to 40. Nurserymen could not carry on if • the reduction were made, “We have heard that argument before," said Mr Roberts. “Every time a reduction of hours is proposed, disaster is predicted. You will have to bring up a more original argument than that.” Mr Nairn did not conceal his amusement when Mr Roberta referred to the move for reduction of hours “right throughout the world.” “You can laugh and giggle there, Mr Nairn, but it is quite a sound argument I am going to produce," retorted Mr Roberts. “These men have been working 48 hours a week ic. many years, and they are as much entitled " Mr Nairn: How many hours do you work? Mr Roberts; 1 am like the secretary of the Employers’ Association, Probably for the last three months I have worked at least 70 or 80 hours a week. Mr Nairn remarked that this was not consistent with the workers’ argument. The question of hours was held over, Mr Roberts saying that the employees were confident of receiving a 44-hour week from the Arbitration Court. Mr* D, I. Macdonald, secretary of the Canterbury Employers’ Association, said that the employers would seek the retention of the existing hours.