40-HOUR WEEK REFUSED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 204, 29 August 1936, Page 11

40-HOUR WEEK REFUSED

PRINTING INDUSTRY DECISION OF THE COURT WELLINGTON, Aug. 28. The judgment of the Arbitration Court has been given on a number of applications for a reauction to 40 hours per week in awards relating to the printing and related trades. “The activities covered by the present applications may be described in general terms as the printing industry,” states the judgment. “They embrace the printing and publishing of newspapers, general commercial printing, stationery manufacturing, and photo process engraving. Some firms carry on more than one branch of these activities, while others limit their operations to one branch. Thus nearly all newspaper printers do also a certain amount of general commercial printing, and most of the large city newspaper printers carry on general commercial printing and also photo process engraving; and one of them carries on also some stationery manufacturing .... “The Legislature has given some consideration to the position of newspapers by providing that ‘newspaper offices’ are not subject to the closing hours fixed by the Shops and Offices Act, and that the ‘printing office’ in which the printing and publishing operations are conducted, though generally subject to the Factories Act, are exempted from certain restrictions relating to holidays and halfholidays prescribed in respect of other industries. “Practical Difficulties” “The printing and publishing of a daily newspaper within the limits of a 40-hour week appears to present some difficulties. As such a newspaper is published on six days of the week, the weekly span of hours must be spread over six days. The whole cycle of processes must begin and finish each day. While some of the material may be prepared in advance, generally speaking each edition is the result of a single day’s efforts. “The product must be completed by a certain fixed hour every day, for transport facilities will nor wait and the public demand for the newspaper at a lixed hour is insistent. A margin of time has to be maintained to enable congestion and difficulty arising during the course of the day to be met and coped with. “The evidence before us is that a reduction of hours to 40 per week would give insufficient time each day for the work required to be done. “In the cases of the larger city dailies this difficulty might be met if further machinery were installed. In the case of many of the country newspapers, however, where smaller staffs are employed, such a solution would not be a practicable one and lhe result would be that the time lost by the imposition of a 40-hour week would have to be made up by working the existing staffs overtime. “In so far, therefore, as the printing and publishing of daily newspapers is concerned there appears to be some practical working difficulties in carrying on the industry efficiently on a 40-hour week. “In the case of general commercial printing these difficulties do not exist to the same extent, though the evidence is that much of that work is urgent work and even with the present spread of hours a considerable amount of overtime is incurred and paid for. Financial Problem “There is, however, another problem—a financial one—confronting all branches of the printing industry. We have examined the balance-sheets and trading accounts and profit and loss accounts for the last three financial years of one hundred and sixteen newspaper publishing and commercial printing and process engraving and stationery manufacturing firms, and have extracted the material figures therefrom. These balance-sheets include those of nearly all the city daily newspapers and the majority of the larger provincial and country newspapers and include those of a large number of commercial printing firms, photo process engraving firms, and stationery manufacturing firms. They are, we think, fairly representative of the whole industry. “These show that, while some individual firms are in a sound position, a large number have been and are experiencing financial difficulty and many have been and are carrying on at a loss. Substantial increases in working costs have already been effected by the restoration of the 1931 scale of wages, the increase of minimum rates of pay under the Factories Act, and the provisior tor payment for extra holidays. The imposition of a 40-hour week would mean the financial embarrassment of many firms and the annihilation of some. “The test laid down by this Court in an earlier ca?e, as to tne practicability, from a financial standpoint, of carrying on an industry efficiently on a 40-hour week, is the anility of the industry to operate successfully and profitably on such reduced hours. “We have come to the conclusion that, viewing this industry as a whole, it is impracticable under present conditions for it to be carried on efficiently on a 40-hour week. “The applications to amend the awards by reducing the hours to 40 per week must therefore be refused.” Dissenting Opinion In a dissenting opinion, Mr Monteith says that in so far as printing establishments are concerned the industry could easily be operated on a 40-hour week of five days, and to-day some of them were opeiating on a five-day-week basis. The figures supplied by the employers to the Government Statistician showed that bebetween 1933-34 and 1934-35 the labour cost on the total value was less, and the balance left to the employer was greater. In fact, the employers were £99,669 better off in 1934-35 than lin the previous year. “In view of the fact that some firms already work a five-day week, and in view of the returns for the whole industry, I believe a 40-hour five-day week in printery establishments and a 40-hour sixday week in publishing offices should have been awarded.”