PRIVATE HOTELS

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 147, 19 December 1919, Page 8

PRIVATE HOTELS

EMPLOYEES' CLAIMS

IRREGULAR HOURS QUESTION.

The claims of employees in the service of private hotels in the city were heard by the Conciliation Council to-day. The Commissioner (Mr. W. Newton) presided. The assessors for the employers were Messrs. C. W. Throsby, W. H. Bird, and W. A. W. Grenfell; f,gr the applicant Hotel Workers' Union, Messrs. H. O'Malley, H. J. Colgate, and H. Lees. Mr. 'E. Kennedy appeared aa agent for the applicants.

The hours of work claimed were fortyeight in any ono week, and eight in any one day, to be worked within a margin of ten hours in any one day. The question discussed was the time the employees might be kept waiting for service. The applicants offered twelve hours in which the eight hours' service might be included. In the old award the period was fourteen hours. ■ Mr. O'Malley suggested that the practice obtaining during the war of letting the girls who got the early breakfast ready off in the afternoon. After further discussion, the applicants offered a marginal period of fourteen hours in which the day's work could be done, including mealtimes not to exceed half an hour each, but the union adhered firmly to its demand for a forty - eight hour week, which was not conceded, the employers standing by the fiftytwo hour week for women and sixty for men under the Shops and Offices Act. Mr. Kennedy protested against applications for a 48-hour week being made a shuttlecock between tb^ Arbitration Court and. the Legislature.

The Cbmmissipner said that it was to be preferred that they should come to an agreement there and then rather than go to the Legislature. Mr. Grenfell said it would be unfair to make the concession without consulting other employers in other places. Mr. Throsby said he could see no reason why all hotels sliould not come under the same award.

Mr. Kennedy : "There may be no hotels soon." (Laughter.) No settlement was reached on ' the question of a 48-hour week. The council agreed that the working hours should be worked within six days only in each week. Th« applicants asked that one full day's holiday should be' given in every consecutive seven days, but the respondents held by the existing award, providing, for one day's holiday in each week. No agreement iras reached on this point.

In regard to special holidays, the applicants claimed double pay on Ohrist«nas Day, Good. Friday, Soivereign's Birthday, and Anzao Day. Objection was taken by the employers to Anzao Day (25th April), on account of thd uncertainty as to its status as a holiday. Mr. Kennedy submitted that failure to observe Anzac Day was an indication of lip-loyalty only. On that particular day the workers did not want to work.

Mr. Grenfell characterised the proposal as mercenary. Tho workers were not the only people who had made sacrij fices and suffered.

Mr. Kennedy : "We don't want the money; we'll make it a closed holiday." Mr. Throsby : "How could we shut up our places? For preference I would like a day of closing, and give all the staff a day off, but we can't do it."

The question of Anzac Day was left in abeyance.

, At this stage the council adjourned until the afternoon.