RAILWAYS TRIBUNAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1946, Page 4

RAILWAYS TRIBUNAL

TRAVELLING TIME AND OVERTIME CLAIMS SUBMITTED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 4. A submission that travelling time entered into a contract of service was made to-day in support of a claim before the Railways Industrial Tribunal by Mr. J. Robertson, president of the Engine-drivers’, Firemen’s, and Cleaners’ Association. The claim, put forward jointly by the four service organisations of the department, called for travelling and other passive time to be taken into consideration for the compilation of overtime and the penal rate, and to be treated as time worked. Travelling time was defined as the time occupied by an employee in travelling from one station to another to perform duty, or after completion of work, and standing time as time incurred during shifts' when employees were not booked off duty. “Wrong in Principle. Mr. Robertson said the present regulations did not provide for payment for any travelling time at other than ordinary rates. This he considered wrong in principle. It meant that if any employee were on duty for 48 hours in any week of five shifts, and eight hours of that time were spent in travelling, he would receive no weekly overtime rates. For the Railways Department, Mr.i N. L. Stevenson said the principle of counting time not actually worked for the purpose of computing overtime ana penal rates was definitely opposed. He submitted that a man was working only so long as he accepted responsibility. A man travelling to or from duty was not so placed. Under cross-examination, Mr. Stevenson admitted that so far as unnatural hours and their impact on the home were concerned, it made no difference whether an employee was travelling as a passenger or carrying out operative duties.' Holiday Claims. A combined four-department claim for anniversary day or a day in lieu thereof, Dominion Day, and the day after New Year’s Day to be departmental holidays, was also presented to-day. * I The unions claimed that Dominion 1

Day had been a railway holiday till lost in 1923 and should be restored, and the other two were generally recognised as statutory holidays in most awards. Pay and hours for Sunday and departmental holiday work were the subject of a further joint claim. The unions asked that there be not more than one break in the continuity of any employees’ time on such, days, that the break should not exceed four hours in any span of eight, and where the span of hours increased, the time paid for at the appropriate rate should be increased in addition to the four hours’ minimum by the exact time that the span increased over eight hours, or times to be treated as separate bookings. The tribunal adjourned- until tomorrow.