SHOP ASSISTANTS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 12

SHOP ASSISTANTS

Important Amendments To Bill LIMITATION OF HOURS The limitation of working hours of shop assistants under the Shops and ■offices Amendment Bill will not conic into force until September 1. under an amendment introduced into tlie Bill by (he Labour Bills Committee, which reported the measure back to Hie House yesterday. It was originally provided that the Bill as a whole should come

into operation on July 1. but the committee's amendment provides that the clause dealing with hours and fixing a 14-hour week, an eight-hour day, except on one day weekly, when employment may lie for 11 hours, a meal interval of at least an hour after four and a quarter hours of continuous work and compulsory closing at noon on the statutory closing day is to be suspended until September 1. The other provisions‘of the Bill will come into force on July 1 as originally provided. There is a further amendment to the provision that shop assistants may not be worked for more than four and a quarter hours continuously without an interval of at least an hour for a meal. It is provided that only with the previous written consent of an inspector of factories the period of four and a quarter hours may be extended to a maximum of five hours, although the assistant must be allowed an interval of at least 10 minutes in every working period of not more than three hours. The Bill brings solicitors’ offices under the scope of the Act, but an amendment introduced by tlie committee provides for the employment of assistants in solicitors’ offices in special circumstances after 5 o’clock on weekdays and after noon on Saturdays, which are the compulsory closing times laid down in the Bill. It is provided that an assistant in a solicitor’s office may be employed after the closing hours for the purpose of doing any special work in relation to his duties, although he may not be called on to work in this ntanner~for more than three hours in any one day nor for more than six days in any one month. For any such extended time payment must be made in accordance with the original provisions of the Bill —that is, time and ;i half, with a minimum of 1/(1 an hour and a meal allowance of 1/6 for all assistants whose wages are less than £3OO a year. A new clause inserted by tlie committee deals with the hours of commencing work for persons engaged in delivering milk. Tlie principal Act states that milkmen must not be employed before 3 a.tn., but the new clause provides that only in accordance with conditions approved by the Minister persons employed in or in connection with tlie delivery of milk may be employed before that hour.

A clause in the Bill which limited to an aggregate of 561 b. the weight to bo carried or transported on a bicycle by a shop assistant tinder 18 years of age is deleted.