Court Rules On Hours For Sales In Homes

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30108, 17 April 1963, Page 18

Court Rules On Hours For Sales In Homes

“The Press” Special Service

AUCKLAND, April 16. Salesmen who sell goods in homes after normal shopping hours will no longer be able to do so on Saturday mornings. A new award allows them to sell up to 10 pm. from Monday to Friday only. The new Northern General Retail Shop Assistants’ Award, issued by the Court of Arbitration, legalises a practice which has been established for years A list of goods which shop salesmen may sell in homes after normal shop hours has been included by the Court.

The list and the definition of the type of employee permitted to do the selling was the subject ot a dispute before the Court recently The new list contains educational books, lawnmowers

and mechanised garden tools, pianos, organs, band and orchestral instruments, radios and radiograms, refrigerators, sewing and knitting machines, television sets, trousseau linen sets, vacuum cleaners and floor polishers, washing machines and electric clothes driers.

In a memorandum to the award, Mr Justice Tyndall says that the goods on the

list have traditionally been sold outside shop hours, and it • was considered desirable and necessary that persons trying to sell goods of this character should be able to demonstrate them in the homes of potential purchasers, preferably when both husband and wife were present.

In a further note to the award, the employers' representative, Mr W N Hewitt, says: “While disliking undue restrictions on trading hours I would agree that in so far as the Shops and Offices Act contemplates restrictions in the interests of fair trading, the provisions of the statute should not be ignored

“One must recognise that tile action now taken by the Court liberalises trading hours in certain respects, but because of the non-observance

fully of the closing-hours provision of the award in the past this may not be generally realised

“It may well be that further representations to the Court will follow when the award is again reviewed.”

The award defines outside salesmen as those who are employed wholly or substantially away from their shops