HOTEL HOURS IN N.S.W.

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23803, 24 November 1942, Page 4

HOTEL HOURS IN N.S.W.

MUNITION WORKERS’ PROBLEM (0.C.) SYDNEY, November 18. Munition workers are incensed at the failure of the New South Wales Government to provide drinking facilities for them on the completion of long shifts. Legal trading hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., which excludes men engaged on a 12-hour shift, ending at 7 p.m., from obtaining a drink. In some towns police have shut their eyes to after-hours trading where they know that munition workers are being accommodated with beer. Apparently the Government is in accord with this illegal practice so long as it is not saddled with the responsibility. Various hotelkeepers are emphatic that they have been given a verbal assurance by the Government that they can serve such workers between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m,, as a courtesy privilege. The Premier (Mr W. McKell) states that he has never given any such instruction. The trouble was brought to a head this week when a licensee at Lithgow, 100 miles west of Sydney, was fined for serving after hours. Other hotels, fearing similar action, closed their doors at the legal hour. When 3000 workers arrived in the town shortly after 7 p.m. they were annoyed to find the doors, which had always been discreetly left ajar, barred against them. There was talk of forcing an entrance and of a strike the next day, but wiser counsels prevailed. Union officials representing the men sent telegrams to State and Federal Ministers asking that the privilege to shift-workers be restored. The police also asked for a definite ruling, stating that it was unfair to ask them to act at their own discretion.