Opposition to new hours

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 1

Opposition to new hours

Christchurch opinion seems to be against extended shopping hours. Even with the likelihood of Saturday shopping removed, most unionists and managers oppose what remains in the newly amended Shop Trading Hours Bill— the employers’ rights to open at 7 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. on any week day. Where union and management differ,is in what both call “the realities of the situation.” Management “realities” are that no retailer can afford to extend his hours, no matter what latitude the bill gives him, and union “realities” are that no matter how firm is • management insistence that shops will not open longer, they will, because of the laws of competition. At present under the retail (non-food) employees’ award, shops’ hours are 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on four days of the week, and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on either Thursday or Friday. In the Shop Trading Hours Bill, yet to have its second reading, hours are extended to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. but not obligatorily. (When the bill ■was amended on Friday, Saturday shopping was excluded from the extended limits.) Shop assistants spoken to in New Brighton, Bishopdale, and the inner city yes-

terday had no clear grasp of the bill. They talked feelingly about “having to work on Saturdays,” disruptions to family life, enforced shift work, and overtime.

Management talked of increased overheads of 15 to 20 per cent for every extra evening open — caused by heating, lighting, cleaning, and doubled wages costs.

Opposing extended hours, the South Island manager of a large hardware store said: "Penal rates kill it, and there’s enough time now for the public to do all the shopping they want.” Bishopdale was mentioned by the general manager of Woolworths (N.Z.) Ltd (Mr K. Treacey) as a

complex for which extended shopping hours might be sought. Two female staff members at the Woolworths store spoke out against the bill.

One said that if it were passed longer hours would "creep in.” “The hours we’ve got now are quite sufficient,” she said, adding that she would not work on Saturdays.

The other Woo!worths assistant said that the bill was pointless: people had only a limited amount of money to spend. She said she did her own shopping throughout the week in her lunch breaks.

A woman assistant in another Bishopdale store said

that she and the other staff had been told not to talk to reporters: “There’s no point talking about enforced overtime and split shifts,” said the manager of a major department store. “We haven’t even considered that. We’ve simply decided there will be no extended hours; we can’t afford them. Things will stay exactly as they are.” “That might be what they’re saying,” said the furniture manager for McKenzie and Willis. Ltd (Mr R. G. Maxsted). “But that’s what they said in Britain and Australia, and just as adamantly. But it will come. I’ve seen it happen. “They don’t want it, but they haven’t got a lot of option. It will be forced on the most by a few. If one store opens at extended hours next to me. and sells the same kind of merchandise I do, and I find he's doing well, and my patronage and sales are falling, I haven’t got a lot of option.” “I can’t afford extended hours,” said a New Brighton pharmacist. “It’s uneconomic. but if the chemist over the road decides to be open longer and he begins to take my custom. I’ll follow suit because I’ll feel I’m missing out on something. What else can I do?”

There has been a lot of “surplus emotion” expressed about the shop trading-hours issue, according to Mr R. J. Naysmith, manager of R. M. Naysmith, Ltd, a Bishopdale home-appliance retailer. | “Basically, the only part I’m onposed to is the extended hours during the week, but I feel that if the bill goes through it will certainly tidy up the Shops And Offices Act, and make administration and enforcement easier,” said Mr Naysmith. He said the change would not have much effect on actual opening hours. “Shops can open to 6 p.rn. now, but few take advantage of it. The over-all effect will be minimal,” he said.

“Taken as a whole, I think i the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.” But the commission now' had stricter criteria for deciding applications for opening outside the Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., hours. The fact that Bishopdale had never sought exemotion to open on Saturdays indicated that businessmen there saw no need for it. The question had never been raised, Mr Naysmith said. ( Originally, retailers and employees had opposed the bill because of its provision for Saturday and Sunday trading, but this part of the bill had now been tightened up. said Mr Naysmith. I “I feel the objections have | now been met to a great extent in the amendments,” he said. “Therefore the sting has been taken out of the main reason for the shop assistants’ strike.” Even if retailers wanted to have longer hours, the higher overheads would probably rule them out, especially with stringent price controls preventing higher costs from

being passed on to con-1 sumers, he said. “Extended hours'?” said one male shop assistant in his twenties. “As long as I don’t have to work them, I don’t mind.” “Look.” said a waitress in a luncheon bar. “I’m not giving up my social life for overtime. As for fitting in shopping, I do it at New Brighton on Saturdays. “We don’t need extended hours; Thursday and Fridaynight shopping, and Saturday at New Brighton, are all the safety valves shoppers in this city need,” she said. “What irks me,’ ’said a department store men’s wear salesman, “is that on one hand the Government is telling up to conserve energy, and on the other hand it is telling us to keep our shops warm and lit longer.” Mrs H. Williamson, who manages the New Brighton shop of Ernest Adams, Ltd, said that the amendments had not altered the resolve of herself and the staff of five women to oppose the bill. “We still believe in our 40hour week as it stands: the new law would change everything,” she said. Women shop assistants with children would not be able to start work at 7 a.m. because they had to get their children to school, and if their husbands were on shift work there would be “no show” of seeing them. “If the firm said it wanted to start at 7 a.m., we would either have to leave or do as we were told. But I don’t think the firm would want to start at these hours,” Mrs Williamson said. If night hours were worked, it would lead to problems arranging meals for the family, she said. However, she considered

that New Brighton had and ! still has, a special case for! opening on Saturdays be- i cause it was a seaside resort, | When asked how New I Brighton shop assistants had! adapted to working on Sat-! urdays, she said that most; married employees had teen-1 age children, who could look! after themselves on Saturdays. Mrs Williamson said though that because the legislation affected more people ) than .just shop assistants, there should be a national re- ) ferendum on the issue. Mrs D. Stowell, a married woman with all her children ) aged over 10. has been work-' ing at New Brighton in Hannah’s shoe store for three! years. She spoke strongly ) against the bill. “I don’t believe in this) seven in the morning start, i or late at night,” she said. “I don’t think there is any need for it in New Zealand.”, She said Saturday work) definitely disrupted family; life, but for her it was a question of finding work; close to her home. ‘‘lt breaks up the week-end. There is a definite need for extra pay to make up for it. You get no social life . . . you can’t go out on a Friday night.” A florist, who declined to be identified, said that a lot of people were “browned off” about the way the unions were manipulating people’s rights. She said the union should) be asked to pay the wages) of those who went on strike. ) “We are a free country,) but the unions are fast making us less than free,” she said.

Her shop was permitted to open on Saturdays, she said, but she had never taken advantage of it because there was insufficient demand.