GROCERS IN MEAT TRADE

Grey River Argus, 16 October 1936, Page 8

GROCERS IN MEAT TRADE

LABOUR DEPARTMENT Raises Award Question (Per Press Association). CHRISTCHURCH, October 15. Most grocery stores have counters at which they sold ham. bacon, dairyproduce, and sometimes sausages. In the Magistrate’s Court, to-day, Mr F. F. Reid, S.M., was asked to decide whether the assistants at such countets were grocers or butchers, the Labour Department having prosecuted three city firms, with grocery- stores, tor alleged breaches of the Butchers’ Award, by employing assistants after nve p.m.. without payment of overtime. As g.oeers’ assistants, t hey could work tdi 5.30.

It was stated during the hearing, that, if the contention of the Department was sustained, then every grocer ;n the Dominion would bo affected. W messes for the defendants said that t had been the custom for grocer.,’ shops to sell certain classes of p.e.eived or cured meats, such a s ham , iid bacon, but not fresh meat. The only meat sold by grocers which could described as fresh was m the form v, pork sausages. The assistants were not named as butchers, and they knew nothing of the butchery trade. The Magistrate reserved his deci-