PROVISION FOR FORTYHOUR WEEK

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 8

PROVISION FOR FORTYHOUR WEEK

♦ POSITION OF STOREMEN TOR FACTORY A case involving the attitude of the Arbitration Court on the circumstances in which the hours ot work prescribed by an award could be reduced by other labour provisions and described by the magistrate, Mr F. F. Reid. S.M., as possibly having far-reaching effects, was heard in the Magistrate's Court yesterday morning. In defending the case Mr L. J. Hensley contended that storemen working in the store for a factory with an importing and retail branch were not bound to keep to the 40-hour week observed by the factory workers.

The Labour Department (Mr H. A. Gatward) proceeded against Booth, Macdonald .and Company, Ltd. (Mr Hensley), alleging that the firm had employed four storemen in excess of the hours prescribed in the Taranaki, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago, and Southland storemen's and packers' awax-d, which, in providing for a 44hour week, directed that if provision were made otherwise in any cases for shorter hours these should be allowed. The department claimed that the Factories Act provided for 40 hours a week and that the men should therefore not work a 44-hour week. The period involved was from September, to October 8.

The men stated in evidence that they worked 44 hours a week (eight hours on week-days, four on Saturdays). They were employed in dispatching goods, and some assembling of goods was done. Mr Hensley said that the whole attitude of the Arbitration Court was that packing was an essential ingredient of the work of wholesale houses and that a 40-hour week was impracticable. The proviso was made that if an industry observed the 40-hour week the packers and storemen should be entitled to it, but there were cases of houses with different entities, and the circumstance that, the factory was adjacent to the storeroom did not bear on the case. The defendant firm had a factory six miles from the stores in Auckland, and in Palmerston North, and Timaru had no factory. Assembling certainly had been done, in Christchurch, but when it was pointed out to the firm that the regulations wer<! being infringed the duties of the men were altered. The attitude of the Arbitration Court was that storemen and packers should follow the industry of the house to which they belonged, and in this case they were essentially bound up with the retail and distribution side of the work. He instanced that a distributing house might receive goods from its factory 0000 miles away. George Matthew Hall, the manager, stated that an Otago award provided separately for assemblers. He said that the factory could continue working without the store, which was not required till sales were made. Farmers would be inconvenienced if the store were closed on Saturday. "This is an important case and may have far-reaching effects," said the magistrate. "I shall reserve my decision."