Saturday trading given approval

Press, 22 November 1980, Page 3

Saturday trading given approval

PA Wellington! All retail shops, including! butchers, have been given I approval by their employees [to open on Saturdays until Christmas. ' After Christmas, retailers will be required to give their respective employees a month's notice of their intention to trade on Saturdays. No main retail stores, including Woolworths and McKenzies, spoken to yesterday, intend to open today.

Full-scale Saturday trading will start next Saturday.

The approval by workers has been given in two separate agreements — the nonfood retail award finally negotiated in Christchurch yesterday, and a special agreement for butchers between the Federation of Labour and the Meat Retailers’ Association. The Christchurch negotiations provide: — A wage increase of 13.5 per cent for shop workers.

— Payment at double-time rates on Saturdays for all workers, whether full-time, part-time, or casual. — No existing employee to be forced to work on Saturdays. — Saturday work at all times to be offered to existing employees before new staff is hired.

The major retail award had been settled only “with substantial concessions on both sides,” said the industrial officer of the Shop Employees’ Association, Mr R. J. Campbell.

Other retail awards remained to be negotiated. Mr Campbell said that while some principles could be common to the settlements, the butchers and supermarket awards would have greater restraints on employers because, “of the greater industrial strength we have in those sections.” In the non-food sector, yesterday’s agreement was experimental and would be reviewed in the middle of next year, Mr Campbell said. Any needed changes to award conditions would be made then. “We have agreed to give Saturday trading a go on; a trial basis, with adequate protection for staff, and then have another look at it on the basis of experience,” he said.

“From a union point of view, it is a great tragedy that we have been unable to prevent Saturday work in total but we are still optimistic that in the other awards and in actual practice, widespread Saturday work can be prevented. “We have managed to get agreement, however, on a very comprehensive protection clause which requires close consultation with the union regarding changes . in working hours or trading practices,” Mr Campbell said. “We still believe retailers will realise the need for further restraint by the time of the review next year.” The advocate for the Retailers’ Federation. Mr _ C. Mclnnes, said from Christ-; church that the principal

difficulty from the beginning had been the unions’ insistence for control, or power of veto, over Saturing. “That difficulty has been removed, and the agreement clearly gives employers the right to open on Saturdays and employ staff. “But always from the beginning, employers have been prepared to give protection to their employees and that has been effected in this agreement,” Mr Mclnnes said.