Unions may move to block part-timers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 2

Unions may move to block part-timers

Casual and part-time workers would be the first to be laid off if the driving industry were faced with redundancies, says the secretary of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union (Mr P. R. Liggett).

This policy would be followed because many part-time and casual staff were working in the industry as a secondary employment, said Mr Liggett. Full-time workers were usually the “breadwinners” of the family, and it was their only income. Mr Liggett said that a parttime worker was not allowed to work any more than four days a week, otherwise the union would demand that he be treated as a weekly worker, and be paid for a 40hour week, rather than for the hours worked. TIMARU CASE This clause in the award had been a “bit of a problem,” he said. A recent case in Timaru had been found in favour of the award. A girl who was employed as a parttime worker had exceeded the hours she could work while employed as such, and the union won a case whereby she be employed fulltime. An Auckland firm involved in an Industrial Court case was typical, the Press Association reports. The firm hired a woman driver to work between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m, — an arrangement which suited both employer and employee. But after terminating her employment she asked the Northern Drivers’ Union to support a claim for payment of unpaid wages based on a 40-hour week. Union-company negotiations made no progress and the union took the issue to the Industrial Court. Mr Justice Jamieson accepted the union’s argument that the woman was not a casual worker and was entitled to be paid for a full 40-hour week, whether or not her employer made use of her. The fact that her employer required her to work less than the maximum permitted

ordinary hours of work — and the fact that she would not have been able or willing to do so — was irrelevant. The woman obtained judgment against her former employer for $2510, and costs of $125 were awarded to the union. Warnings went out to employers soon after the decision was announced. Mr Liggett said that no cases like this were known in Christchurch, but the union was keeping a close watch. Award clauses make no provision for part-time workers. although casual workers

may be employed for less than five days a week if they are paid 15 per cent above award hourly rates. Part-timers could be offered either a shorter week —putting them in the casual bracket — or loss of their jobs, the Press Association reports. “But union officials plan to police even this arrangement. Casual workers may be employed only where there is no full-time worker available to do the work. “Under present conditions this effectively outlaws casual workers at many firms,” the report says.