SIX-DAY WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 32, 8 February 1944, Page 6

SIX-DAY WEEK

AUCKLAND TRAMWAYMEN

O.C. AUCKLAND, This Day. Members of the Auckland Transport Board's traffic staff will commence working longer hours early in March, when a full six-day week will come into operation. The longer week was decided upon at a meeting of the manpower utilisation committee for tramways, following many'weeks' agitation by the Auckland Tramway Workers' Union.

In a report to the board yesterday on the longer working hours and absenteeism, the engineer and manager. Mr. A. E. Ford, said that the staff would now work about 54 hours a week, instead of the present average hours of between 48 and 50.

With the board's other representative, Mr. R. Armstrong, he had emphasised that it was not in the public interest to impose the strain of longer working hours on the traffic staff, said Mr. Ford. On February 3, when 44 men had been absent, it had been necessary to cancel eight runs in the morning and six in the afternoon. There was no need to emphasise the necessity for operating every available tram to meet the extra heavy traffic. Referring to the six-day week, the manager pointed to the action taken recently by Sydney tramway men who found the,conditions of a six-day week too onerous and who stopped running for one day as a protest. It had also been pointed out to the committee, he said, that, the step would make very few men avaifable for the Armed Forces.

The only point in favour of the increase in hours was that men would not be required to carry out duties caused by absenteeism, the report continued. They would complete the ordinary/ working week. However, Mr. Ford said, the longer hours would before long bring increased absenteeism. In view of the cdsnmittee's decision, said the chairman/Mr. W. H. Nagle, the board had no option but to comply. The board was prevented from running the service' as it desired in the public interest-.