CHANGES MADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 140, 15 May 1936, Page 9

CHANGES MADE.

SHOPS AND OFFICES BILL. EASING OF CONDITIONS. (By Telegraph—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, May 14. The changes made in the Shops and Offices Amendment Bill by the Labour Bills Committee of the House of Representatives are generally in the direction of a slight easing of the restrictive conditions. The committee reported the measure this morning with an addition to clause 3, which specifies the hours of employment, providing that there must not be continuous work for 1 onger than 4( hours without an interval of at least one hour for a meal. A sub-clause has been added enabling a shopkeeper, with the previous consent of the inspector, to extend the period to five hours to long as the assistants are allowed a rest period of not less than 10 minutes in every working period of three hours.

All the provisions relating to hours will, according to the new clause, come come into operation on September 1 next.

Another addition to the Bill will enable persons engaged in the delivery of milk to start work Defore 3 a.m. if the conditions are previously approved by the Minister of Labour.

The prohibition of the handling by anv shop assistant of packages over 56fb. weight has been deleted. All the clauses relating to offices remain unaltered, and there is an addition which will enable office assistants employed in solicitors’ offices to work extended hours under special circumstances, this being subject to the limitation that the extension shall not exceed three hours in any day nor be worked on more than six days in any month.