SHOP ASSISTANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 May 1925, Page 7

SHOP ASSISTANTS

————— ——— DEPUTATION TO MINISTER (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 21. A representative deputation from the New Zealand Shop Assistants’ Federation waited upon the Minister of Labour (the Hon. G. J. Anderson) to-night to put the assistants’ case in reply to the view case given by the deputation to the Minister on May 5. Mr. Croskery, secretary to the Federation, criticised the Minister’s statement to the drapers’ deputation that the Arbitration Court had, blundered in making 8.30 the closing hour on late night. The Minister, in reply, said that he thought tho only thing he had to reply to was their wonder at his saying the Arbitration Court had made a blunder, for the rest of the Court had made the award and unless both parties agreed, it could npt be altered. The award must stand. He was not going to discuss it. As to their taking exception, and it was quite fair criticism, to his having said the Court had blundered, he said now that the Court had blundered, and it was a human institution and we all blundered at times. The Court, he held, had blundered in putting in the closing hour 8.30 p.m. for late night, for it interfered with the convenience of the public. The people of New Zealand could not get home from their work and get changed and get down to any town or city and do their shopping by 8.30 p.m. The Court could quite well have left it 9 o’clock and reduced the other hours but the award was there and unless the parties agreed, it could not be altered. He was thinking more of the small shopkeepers in the suburbs. Half an hour could make no difference to the big men employing numbers of hands in the city, but it made considerable difference to the small men in the suburbs. To that extent the Court blundered. He maintained that still. .