DEFENCE WORKS.

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 77, 1 April 1943, Page 4

DEFENCE WORKS.

FIVE-DAY WEEK AT ...

AUCKLAND

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, March 31. It is stated that as from tomorrow all workers covered by the defence works labour suspension order, 1942, and its amendment will go on to a fiveday week. At present they are ;on a five-and-a-half-day week of 48 hours, based on 8f hours from Monday td'Friday inclusive, and 4i hours on Saturday. The amendment will keep-'tha hours to 48, but place each day .oft a basis of 9 hours 36 minutes, with overtime remaining the same, that is";for time worked in excess of 8| hours. The new hours are stated to be as agreed upon by the Commissioner of Defence Construction, Mr. J. Fletcher, and the local labour defence committees. The reasons advanced in Auckland included the reduction of the. defence programme, the desire to avoid an important cause of absenteeisms the removal of part travelling time, for short hours worked on Saturday, and the creation of an opportunity . for workers to have a full weekend- off duty

It was added that those responsibla for the decision were aware of the rfact that there would soon be insufficient daylight for such workers as painters, carpenters, and electricians on outdoor jobs to work 9 hours 36 minutes a day, but that when this became soothe hours would be reviewed.

When workers employed on defence construction were first placed under the labour legislation suspension order by regulations brought down in March, 1942, the weekly hours of work were 54 for a six-day week and overtime was payable for work in excess of nine hours a day. An amendment issued in June, 1942, placed them on a 48-hour week, to be worked over five and a half days with overtime payable when work exceeded 83 hours a day.

tion aircraft in service anywhere. Its speed is reported from the United States as approximately 400 m.p.h. Against the Lysander's three machineguns the Mustang carries eight. .- Most spectacular of all is the R.A.F.'a newest striking weapon, the wooden de Havilland Mosquito, a long-range twin-engined fighter bomber of unspecified speed with which the R.A.F. recently bombed the very heart of Berlin. •-; In such machines as.these the spirit of the pioneers of twenty-five years ago and the years of peace between grows ever stronger, and typifies the Royal Air Force motto, "Per ardiia ad astra."