CONCILIATION COUNCIL

Evening Star, Issue 18541, 25 January 1924, Page 5

CONCILIATION COUNCIL

HAIRDRESSERS AND TOBACCONISTS. The Conciliation Commissioner (Mr W. H. Hagger) held a sitting of the Conciliation Council this morning to hear the dispute of the Otago and Southland Hairdressers and Tobacconists’ Assistants’ Industrial Union of Workers. The assessors for the employers were Messrs A. S. Cookson (agent), A. M. Hendy, P. R Hilliker, A. Butt (Invercargill), and Messrs T. Veitch, A. M’Donald, and W. W. Batchelor appeared for the union.

Several letters were received from suburban and small town employers objecting to the proposal to restrict the hours of opening, as most of their trade was done alter 6 p.m. The union assessors said they were prepared to exempt the small town shopkeepers from the early closing clause. The .union claimed a forty-eight-hour week, exclusive of meal hours, and the hours of work to be 8.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; Friday, from 8.30 a.m. to 9 p.m. ; and Saturday from 8.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Mr Cookson objected to the starting hour being fixed by the award, as in the past the individual employers fixed the starting hour, and the union objected to having two late lights.—After a considerable amount of discussion, in which the point was emphasised that the hours of work under dispute applied only to tho assistants, it was decided by the employers to accept the union’s proposal of closing at 6 p.m. on four days of the week, 9 p.m. on day, and noon on the day of tho weekly half-holiday, except during Christmas week, when overtime would have to bo paid for extra late nights. Tho meal hours were agreed upon, one hour being fixed tor dinner for five days of the week, and one hour for tea on the late night. It was decided that all work in hand in connection with haircutting and shaving be finished before the workmen leave their work. Work in hand moans work in the chair. Hearing is proceeding.