The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1965. Shift Work

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30898, 3 November 1965, Page 20

The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1965. Shift Work

Mr N. H. Rudkin’s comments on shift work deserve a wider audience than the New Zealand Textile and Garment Manufacturers’ Federation. If the publicity given to Mr Rudkin’s presidential address to the conference stirs the public conscience on this issue, he will have made a useful contribution to national efficiency. Overseas textile industries were moving further and faster towards shift working and New Zealand would have to do the same, said Mr Rudkin, in appealing for more latitude in staggered hours . and shift work.

New Zealand imported £25 million worth of electric machinery and £44 million worth of other machinery in 1964-65. How much of this machinery is destined for use in factories where two or three shifts are worked? More pertinently, by how much could this bill have been reduced if shift work were the rule rather than the exception in New Zealand factories? How much shift work is done in New Zealand? The official publications which ought to throw some light on these questions are strangely silent. A search of the lists of contents, of indexes and appendices of the Official Yearbook, and of the annual reports of the Departments of Labour and Industries and Commerce, fails to disclose a single reference to shift work. Nor is the subject mentioned in any of the likely places in any of these works, such as the passages on “ earnings and hours “ worked in industry ” in the Yearbook, “ trade “ practices ” in the Industries and Commerce report, or “ general levels and trends ” in the Labour report. This official reticence stems largely, no doubt, from official ignorance of the practice of shift work. Yet it is common knowledge that shift work is the rule in several major industries, such as flour milling and the pulp and paper industry, while something akin to shift work is practised in taxi-driving, the Police Force, and many other occupations. Shift work is an obvious method of making better use of expensive imported capital equipment: it may be the best way of reducing New Zealand’s excessive demand for imports. At the very least, it deserves consideration as a criterion in the allocation of import licences.