HOTEL WORKERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 229, 26 August 1938, Page 3

HOTEL WORKERS

HOURS AND WAGES. AGREEMENT REACHED. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Ang. 25. A complete settlement was reached in Conciliation Council to-day, when the .adjourned dispute between the private hotel employers and workers employed in private hotels throughout the Dominion was concluded. The hearing was 1 adjourned from August 2 until today, and the employers’ offer of a 2s Gd increase on the weekly-wages of female workers and a 5s increase on the weekly wages of male workers srsis accepted. The term of the new award is for one year. Special provisions were made for private hotels in certain rural and tourist localities. A 44-hour week with an 11-hour' break was agreed upon, and it was agreed also that night porters should work one straight shift of-nine hours, ■with an interval of one hour for a meal after four hours’ work. The hours of night porters are to be -worked over five days and a half in a week. A week and two days was agreed upon as the period for the annual holiday, holiday provisions being on the same basis as those set out in the existing award. Both parties agreed that where board was not provided for any worker £1 per week should be paid as compensation, and that when meals were not provided an additional 3s a day should be paid to a worker. Where lodging was not provided it was agreed that an extra 10s a week should be paid. Two substantial meals each day and 10s .a week in addition to their ordinary wages are to be provided for night porters not “living in.” It was agreed that dance halls should be included with racecourses, banquet halls and ballrooms as places at which workers must be paid special rates. Rates of pay for casual labour were approved as follow : —Chief cook (where three or more hands are employed). £1 10s for the first three days, thereafter ordinary wages; other cooks, £1 a day; second cooks (in a kitchen where three or more are employed), £1 2s Gd for the fir.tt three days, thereafter ordinary wages. All other casual kitchen workers are to be paid 17s Gd a day for the, first three davs_. and thereafter ordinary wages. Waiters are to receive £1 a- day and waitresses 15s a day for the first three days and thereafter ordinary wages; pantrymen, 17s Gd a day; pantrymaids, 12s Gd; laundresses, ,12s Gd; porters and general hands. 7s 6d (all for the first three days, and thereafter ordinary wages). The question of employing general hands for kitchen work involved considerable discussion and the following clause was finally agreed upon : A general hand may be employed in anv capacity desired by his or her employer, including that of relieving cooks and kitebenmaids. They may also be employed in a laundry and may work in a kitchen up to one hour a day without increasing the rating of the kitchen. provided not more tha,n one general hand is employed in the kitchen at any one time, unless on relieving work.