HOURS OF WORK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19134, 1 October 1936, Page 11

HOURS OF WORK

PRINTING TRADE DISPUTE] CONCILIATION EFFORTS COUNCIL ADJOURNS (I’er Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. The adjourned meeting of the Conciliation Council continued to-day to hear the New Zealand Printing and Related Trades industrial dispute. The appellants were the Printing Trade Federation of Workers, and Die respondents were the Master Printers’ Federation and the Newspaper Proprietors' Association. The previous meeting was adjourned ponding the decision of the Arbitration Court on the hours question, the court eventually deciding that the hours should be the same as in the present award.

Mr C. 11. Chapman, for the employees, said that the decision of the court was entirely unexpected so far as the employees were concerned, and ho thought that more progress would be made at tlie present sitting if the parties discussed the 40-hour work week. Mr. Clarkson, for the employers, said there was no doubt that both parties went to court upon the clear understanding that its decision would he accepted. The court’s judgment would be determined by evidence regarding the practical difficulties of reducing hours, especially in the production of a newspaper, and by evidence allowing' that the industry generally would uoi _te. a heavy extra burden of cost which such a reduction would involve. After considerable, discussion, the council adjourned until the afternoon in order that a suggestion made by Mr. Chapman that a 40-hour week "should operate from a certain date in future, could he considered in the meantime. After further consideration this afternoon of proposals formulated during (lie adjournment, the hearing of the dispute was adjourned until to-morrow morning to enable tbe workers to consider the counter-proposals put forward by the employers. APPLICATIONS TO COURT EMPLOYE ES’ 0B J LOTION DECISION RESERVED (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. When a large number of additional applications for exemption from the provisions of the Factories Amendment Act, 1936, limiting the hours to 40 a week came before the Arbitration Court to-day from employers and factory occupiers engaged in the printing and related trades, it was submitted on behalf of the workers that there was no provision in the Factories Act which gave the court authority to deal with applications for exemption filed after September I, 193(1. The court reserved its decision. On behalf of the applicants, Mr. Clarkson, secretary to the New Zealand Master Printers’ Association, said the application was designed to remove any possibility of doubt with regard to the application of the court’s order of September; 1 ami to ensure, by formal order, that; effect, was given to the court’s intentions, as the master printers understood it t. he that, in fact, the benefits of that order should apply uniformly and without exception to every occupier of a factory throughout the industry in its several branches.