“A SPORTING CHANCE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23320, 12 October 1937, Page 7

“A SPORTING CHANCE”

LOCAL RESTAURATEURS EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE LABOUR PETITION TO MINISTER OF LABOUR The announcement by the Government that it intended, during the present session, to undertake the revision of the Shops and Offices Act has prompted concerted action by the proprietors of restaurants, tea rooms, and milk bars in Dunedin, a representative meeting yesterday morning deciding to attempt to secure an extension from 10.30 p.m. to 11 p.m. of the hour until which females might be employed. The following statement of the position will be submitted to the Minister of Labour (Mr H. T. Armstrong) with a view to securing his assurance that the present restriction, which is held to interfere with the public, will be removed: —

“ The Act prohibiting the employment of females after 10.30 p.m., passed as a war measure in 1917 during abnormal conditions, proves a tremendous handicap to the restaurant industry in these modern times of quick and easy transportation and the craze for evening entertainment, specially in Dunedin, where t. e public flocks to the tea rooms after pictures instead of, as is customary in other centres, to cabarets and road houses.

“The large and up-to-date restaurants in Dunedin, which employ scores of hands, could not carry on without this trade, which, in the course of years, has become an indispensable source of revenue. If no provision is made for an extension of hours the large restaurant employers of labour will be compelled to close, and the trade will be driven to the small tea rooms and fish saloons, which employ no labour, or foreign labour, the result inevitably being a wholesale reduction of trained staffs.

“It has been proved conclusively that, at least as far as Dunedin is concerned, pantrymen and waiters are most definitely not available in sufficient numbers to provide staffs; and, in any case, this work does not appeal to the average young men, who, except in rare instances, are not cut out for this kind of work, as no doubt has been found to be the case at railway refreshment rooms, where girls are employed not merely till 11 p.m., but for as late a shift as from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. “ The fact does not seem to be fully appreciated that girls employed in this industry, especially those whose working conditions are congenial, do not object to working till 11 p.m., and when they are free to leave at 10.30 they either prefer to remain on the premises till 11 or to go to a dance hall to fill in time. The idea of 10.30 being time to go home is generally a subject of ridicule.

“ This industry demands a reasonable sporting chance to serve the public. The public has a right to expect this service, from what must be accepted as an indispensable though, unjustly, most harassed industry. For is it not a fact that no other industry dispenses so much hospitality to all classes of people —not only to the city dwellers but the country visitors, the tourists, the motorists, and the 1 too-late-for-dinner ’ hotel guests? “If only in” the interests of the general public, surely the restaurant industry should receive every encouragement, rather than persecution for technical breaches of awards and obsolete laws not in keeping with present-day conditions.” The meeting also decided to inform the Minister that the proprietors were prepared to tender evidence in support of their claims for consideration when the Act is being amended.