HOLIDAY PAY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25240, 19 July 1947, Page 6

HOLIDAY PAY

SHIFT WORKER’S CLAIM JUDGMENT GIVEN FOR PLAINTIFF Judgment in favour of the plaintiff for the amount claimed—£4 10s 7d—was entered by Mr A. A. McLachlan, S.M., in a written decision announced yesterday in the case of Henry Blanchard against the- New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Ltd., which was heard on Thursday. . . Blanchard, an engine-room attendant, claimed £4 10s 7d from the company. His contention was that holiday pay should be worked out on the basis of shift rates, as a shift system had to be worked in the engine-room, the men sometimes having to work on Saturdays and Sundays, when higher rates were paid. Leave to appeal against the decision was granted. Blanchard; who had been employed on a roster for more than 25 years, had always been paid the minimum amount based on five-day shifts of eight hours—£l 4s a shift—on the assumption that any amount in excess of that, such as payment for work on Sundays or night shift, was in the nature of overtime or a perquisite, said the Magistrate in his decision. Shift rates and Sunday rates, although they might coincide witn overtime rates, were really in a different category. The Magistrate quoted the case of Booth, Macdonald v. McGregor, and the recent ruling of the Court of Appeal in the case of Moon v. Kent’s Bakeries, Ltd. In the language of the Chief Justice, holiday pay meant the money a worker would receive for a normal week’s work, exclusive of overtime and what might be described as extras such as dirt money, he said. In this case, the shift rate of pay was neither ,to be deemed overtime, nor was any portion of it a perquisite; but it was the ordinary and basic rate for this section of the company’s emyployees, with ordinary but differential rates of pay according to whether the shift was for the time being worked on a week-day, a Saturday, Sunday, or a night shift. In all the circumstances the proper basis for calculating the rate of holiday pay was on the average rate, taking a four-weekly period, the Magistrate held, stating that he was following the principles laid down in the cases quoted.