A FIVE-DAY WEEK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25386, 18 November 1943, Page 4

A FIVE-DAY WEEK

The desire of the shop assistants of the city, as expressed through their union at a meeting held on Tuesday evening, is to reduce their working time to a "five-day week of 40 hours. They are calling on their national organisation and the Federation of Labour to obtain the necessary legislative action. The public as a whole will not wish them success in their campaign. This is not to suggest that a very human impulse to secure greater leisure —with, of course, no loss /of pecuniary reward —is to be condemned .entirely. There will be considerable abstract sympathy with the shop assistants, who presumably base their case upon the adoption of the 40-hour week in many industries and occupations. But the public must consider its convenience, which would be very seriously affected by the Saturday closing of shops. It is the misfortune of shop assistants—if they like to think of it in that way—that the conditions of their employment must be determined in very large measure by the public. They are employed to give direct service to the people, and a part of that service must consist in their being both present and pleasant at the place of their employment at times which the people may reasonably consider suitable shopping times. There must naturally be some give and take. Shopping hours have been appreciably reduced by various stages. As a war-time measure many shops are now closed for a luncheon hour, and in the evening on “ late night.” The public can understand and accept these alterations, even if they limit the time available for visiting the shops. No doubt in a totalitarian State shoppers could be conditioned to standing in queues and doing all their purchasing by numbers', and shop assistants could carry out their duties in a matter of a few hours a week. But in New Zealand the customer still claims a few privileges, which must be held to include that of making the last of the week-end purchases on Saturday. And the work of the shop assistants is not really of so exacting a nature that a reasonably patient and healthy person could claim that a six-day, 44-hour week at it is more than the human frame could stand.