HOLIDAYS ISSUE

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 21

HOLIDAYS ISSUE

Mr Skinner critical

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Nov. 25.

The Government was today criticised by the President of the Federation of Labour (Mr T. E. Skinner), for not ratifying the International Labour Organisation’s convention calling for three weeks annual holiday for all workers.

In a paper tabled in Parliament yesterday, the Government said it would be premature to ratify the convention.

Mr Skinner said today: “While we were once one of the first in the field of holidays, we are now one of the last. We had two weeks holiday some years ahead of Australia, but today Australia enjoys three weeks holiday for day workers and four Weeks for shift workers. “In the main in New Zealand, anyone who receives three weeks holiday gains it as a long-service entitlement.”

The world’s most advanced countries provided for three weeks holiday, Mr Skinner said. “But here, employers assert that it is a matter for the Government, but the Government now says it is a matter for employers and award negotiations.” This was indeed a strange attitude, when the Government’s representatives at the 1.L.0. conferences in the last two years had voted for the convention, he said.