SHORTER WORKING WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3756, 9 March 1926, Page 79

SHORTER WORKING WEEK.

NEW SOUTH WALES EXPERIMENT. SYDNEY, February 25. Not only is the new Forty-four Hour Act in New South Wales involving not a few men in loss, because of the readjustment of overtime conditions consequent upon it, but it has led to a pretty little taLgie which. course, the courts and the lawyers will have to unravel. It has come into collision with the 48 hours. Many industries are operating under Federal awards, in which the hours have been fixed at 48, but the State law lays it down tl t the week’s work must be only 44. The claim is naturally being made by some employees that the wages must stand according to the Federal law. While a shorter week is a very good thing, it it is uniform throughout the whole of the States and the Commonwealth, the New South Wales Act appears to be hardly the unqualified blesssing, even where the employees alone are concerned, that a benevolent Government believed it would be. The fact, for example, that one or two big Sydney concerns are transferring some at least of their operations to Victoria is not without its significance. Employers standing behind big concerns, and with big capital at stake, do not do this sort of thing siini>ly out of ! a feeling of spleen towards a Labour Government or because of antagonism to their men. They simply want to be .in a position effectively to meet their competitors. The transference of plant, of course, means less employment, in tbeir Sydney establishments.