SATURDAY WORK

Evening Post, Issue 87, 9 October 1936, Page 8

SATURDAY WORK

It was, perhaps, only to be expected that one result of the 40-hour week legislation would be an entirely human discontent on the part of workers' in one branch of industry, who were not awarded a 40-hour week by the Arbitration Court, with their lot by contrast with workers in other branches who did receive additional leisure. The decision on hours was left by Parliament to the Court, and it was assumed that workers would abide by the verdict of a judicial body acquainted with the facts and qualified to decide on the question of "practicability." A Press Association message from Auckland yesterday suggests that there is a movement in the northern city to continue the effort for a universal five-day week throughout the Dominion ,by a refusal to patronise shops on Saturday mornings. It is stated that trade union secretaries "intend to prepare circulars for^distribution among their members, calling upon them to see that their household shopping is done on Fridays." If this could be accepted as a voluntary plan to relieve the rush and congestion of Saturday shopping and ease the pressure on staffs, well and good, but the message adds that certain unions see in the proposal to "discipline the shops" an opportunity of "levelling the differences between the working conditions among unions." If that is the case, the alleged movement is dead against the interests of the community at large, which should be the paramount factor in determining questions of this nature. For this reason there never has been complete uniformity of hours in the past nor can it be expected in the future, if the community is to function normally. Carried to a logical conclusion, the principle of the five-day week and no Saturday work would mean the cessation of all service to the public, and all that would be left for the universal beneficiaries of the five-day week would be to spend their leisure, like an Eastern sage, in profound meditation. Is this what the originators of the "movement" in Auckland have in mind?