SHOP HOURS’ EXTENSION

Press, Issue 29236, 21 June 1960, Page 16

SHOP HOURS’ EXTENSION

More Elasticity Urged

“The case for considerably increased elasticity in shop hours is daily becoming more apparent,” says an article in the latest copy of “The Retailer," a monthly published by the New Zealand Retailers* Federation. “Both the retailer and customer want hours fully suitable to the public and which can consider the needs of staff and social conditions, but the law forbids this. Extended shopping hours would help everyone and also ease traffic and parking congestion in both city and suburbs. But the Shops and Offices Act and the retail shop assistants’ awards are too rigid,’’ the article says, “Scope for giving adequate service to the public is obviously restricted. The mandatory closing hours on four days of the week precludes the adoption by big stores, say, of another late shopping night. Without the right of extended hours stores would gain little or nothing by staggered working hours. The solution would be a more elastic award, say, an 80-hour fortnight or 10-day fortnight, or even the right to vary shop hours while still observing the 40-hour fiveday week would greatly assist “Other Industries and professions can operate a 40-hour fiveday week with elastic hours without crippling penal rates. New Zealand’s population is growing; the Statistics Department names 2,899,000 by 1970; and sooner or later New Zealand’s archaic shop hour laws must go. Reform should start now,*' says the article.