FORTY-HOUR WEEK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 302, 19 November 1938, Page 6

FORTY-HOUR WEEK

JUDGMENT OF INTEREST. LINESMAN’S APPEAL FAILS. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Nov. 17. A question of general interest relating to the effect of part of the 40-hour week legislation upon hourly rates of wages was dealt with in a reserved judgment delivered in the Supreme Court by Mr Justice Callan upon an appeal from a judgment of the Magistrate’s Court in Auckland. Appellant, who had been plaintiff in the Lower Court, was William H. Pearse, of To Aroha, an assistant linesman, and respondent was the Thames Valley Electric Power Board.

Appellant, His Honour stated, was employed at a minimum wage rate of 2s an hour under the Northern Industrial District Electrical Workers’ Award of 1930, which provided that if he worked more than 46 hours in any one week he should be paid overtime. He was not entitled to be paid for time during which he did not work, or to demand employment throughout or payment for 46 hours a week. Shortly after the award was issued the respondent board had provided for its employees generally and appellant in particular only 40 hours of work weekly, but it had paid them the full hourly rate of wages, and had not taken advantage of the 10 per cent, reduction formerly authorised under section 21 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1936. The Court of Arbitration made an order reducing the working hours fixed by the award to 40 weekly, but did not increase the hourly rates of wages. The Power Board had continued to pay appellant at the former rate. He claimed, however, that he was entitled to 46-40ths of that rate and sued for the difference.

His Honour 6aid the only purpose he could see clearly revealed by the language of the sub-section was that certain workers who had enjoyed the actual benefits of the ordinary rate of weekly wages should not find their earnings reduced by reason of the introduction of the 40-hour week. Workers paid by the hour who had normally worked more than 40 hours weekly would suffer unless their hourly rates were increased. However, appellant and the other hourly workers employed by the respondent board had not in truth had their hours of labour or their consequent normal week’s earnings reduced by the order. He was unable to construe the snb-section as requiring these workers to be compensated for loss they had not suffered. The appeal was dismissed.