FORTY-HOUR WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 119, 16 November 1936, Page 11

FORTY-HOUR WEEK

PRIVATE HOTELS

WORKERS' APPLICATION

An application for the extension of the 40-hour week to the employees in private hotels was made before the Arbitration Court today by the New Zealand Federated Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Industrial Association of Workers. The request was opposed by the hotel proprietors who offered a 44-hour week.

Mr. Justice Page presided and associated with him were Messrs. W. Cecil Prime and A. L. Monteith. Mr. F. S. Young appeared for the applicants and Mr. W. J. Mountjoy for the employers.

Mr. Young said that in the conciliation proceedings the workers' representatives asked for a 40-hour week and the employers offered 44 hours. He contended that the onus was on they employers to prove that the 40----hour week was impracticable, to the industry, and that this point had already been decided in the licensed hotel case where the workers proved to the satisfaction of the Court that the accommodation section as well as the bar section could function efficiently on a 40-hour week. No. great hardship would be placed on the employers by having to provide relieving workers on two days per week instead of providing relieving workers for one and a half days each week. The recent legislation was not intended to speed up the workers, but to give more leisure and more employment. Private hotels had been understaffed for years, and during the depression the workers had been terribly exploited as the employers had refused to make awards except under conditions wholly inacceptable to the workers. With the advent of the recent legislation restoring -wages to the 1931 level and reducing the hours of employment and with a Labour Department enforcing those conditions they had practically returned to normal conditions. They had now had eleven weeks' experience of the 40----hour week in licensed hotels and they could definitely assert that the operation of the shorter week had proved an unqualified success. They had received no complaints either from the workers or from the employers. In a large number of cases employers preferred to run a five-day week instead of a five and a half-day week, as the former week was less complicated. In some licensed hotels the bar trade was very small and the accommodation side of the'business was very large. When those conditions existed the business was almost identical with the business of a private hotel. Since the first private hotel award was made in New Zealand no distinction had ever been made between the hours' of work in the licensed hotel award and in the private hotel award, with one exception in 1909, when the hours fixed for the private hotel workers were 60 and those for licensed hotel workers were 65. The workers did not agree that the 40-hour week would increase the cost of running a private hotel to any appreciable extent. Recent increased expenses brought about by. the new legislation had been met in most cases by the employers reverting to the 1931 tariffs. Hotel accommodation in New Zealand was as low, or lower, than in any other civilised country, and tariffs in the Dominion could even be increased and then compare more than favourably with Australia.

Mr. Mountjoy said that the Court's decision would apply to 656 private hotelkeepers. The employers refused to agree to the 40-hour week for the following reasons:—-(1) That conditions of trade had been so difficult that it would be impracticable to carry on the industry satisfactorily under a 40----hour week;-(2) proprietors'of private hotels had found it very difficult to pay. their way, even when a 48-hour week was permitted by law; (3) the increased costs brought about by shortened hours and increased wages in private hotels, together with the increasing cost of commodities, would make it impossible for proprietors to carry on satisfactorily, if the hours of work were further reduced.

It was contended that the legislators did not intend to apply the 40----hour week to private hotels, as the Shops and Offices Act, 1936, provided for the limitation of the hours of employment in hotels and restaurants to 44 per week, excluding meal times. The cost of laundry work Jiad increased considerably, and that was a considerable item. Other items that had increased since July 1, 1936, were: Bacon, 4 per cent.; meat, 8 per cent.; eggs, 10 per cent.; milk, 14 per cent.; bread and cakes, 14 per cent.; fish, 21 per cent.; butter, 25 per cent.; vegetables and fruit, 15 per cent.; fuel (all kinds), 5 per cent. The'cost of catering per head per boarder in one large private hotel, as a result of the many increases,; including wages and shorter hours, had been increased by 36 per cent, as from January, 1936; to the end of September, 1936. In some establishments where proprietors had increased their tariff to meet the increased costs, a big falling-off in the number of permanent boarders had taken place. The private hotels played a big part in catering for the tourist trade which the Government was endeavouring to encourage, and if costs were increased the facilities at the disposal of tourists would have to be controlled.

Both sides are calling evidence to support the contentions of their advocates.

(Proceeding.)