ANNUAL LEAVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1944, Page 6

ANNUAL LEAVE

CASUAL WORKERS

STATE EMPLOYEES

Although the Annual Holidays Act, 1944, does not bind the Crown, the Government has directed that the principle of the Act is to apply to casual workers employed by Government departments. The Act provides for two weeks' holiday on ordinary pay at the end of each year of service and for proportionate leave if a full year has not been worked. A circular dealing with the matter has been issued from the head office of the Public Works Department, in which it is stated that construction works will close down for Christmas holidays on Friday, December 22, but if workmen have long distances to travel they may, on application, be allowed off earlier without pay to enable them to arrive home by December 23. The resuming date for Public Works employees with at least one year's continuous service and others who elect to take the full vacation is January 11. "Several very bad cases of absenteeism have occurred on the largest and most urgent of our works," says the circular, "and it is clear from the reports on them that the offenders could not under any stretch of their imagination expect to be not penalised in the matter of annual leave payments. The Minister has, therefore, directed that all cases of absenteeism are to be dealt with on their merits, and tha,t where a workman has not been in the habit of absenting himself from work without leave and has not been away from work for more than, say, a week on any one occasion, no reduction need be made in the number |of weeks of his service. Where, however, workmen have been frequently absent' from work for a few days at a time or more than a week on any occasion, engineers may use their judgment in deciding the annual leave penalty which would be equitable after taking all circumstances into consideration."