THE SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1087, 5 January 1911, Page 20

THE SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

ITS HANDICAPS UPON THE TRADE

AN UNSATISFACTORY POSITION.

Hotelkeepers who have been served —and who has not? —with the batch of notices issued by the Labour Department at the close of the year, under the “Shops and Offices Act, 1908,” and its amendment of 1910, will recognise, with mixed feelings, that they are now subject to still further, and, in many respects, very unnecessary restrictions in the conduct of their calling. “The tyranny of legislation” is coming to be felt more and more in this country by all classes of the employing community. But we venture to say that none are more badly hit by it than hotel licensees. The licensing law is, in itself, restrictive to a degree; the tendency being to make what are perfectly legitimate actions in other people and places, penal, or semi-criminal, offences in licensees and hotels. The latter are subjected to a vigilant inspection at the hands of police officers, many of whom act as if it was part of their business to stand on technicalities, and take advantage of every opportunity of securing convictions, rather than to observe the strict equities of the law. We have, on more than one occasion, drawn attention to the number of police prosecutions for alleged offences against the licensing law that have ended abortively, although repeated adjournments have been secured by the police in their anxiety to bolster up untenable charges. If the Labour Department administer the Shops and Offices Act on the same lines as the police administer the Licensing Act, the hotelkeeper’s position may easily be made unendurable. And that brings us to the point we desire to more particularly emphasise, that no other class of employers are subject to the dual inspection that .is introduced by the Shops and Offices Amendment Act, 1910, nor compelled to observe laws that may be, and are conflicting in their incidence, and in the obligations they impose.

THE ANOMALIES OF THE LAW.

There are certain marked anomalies in the law to which attention has been directed by Mr J. S. Palmer, President of the New Licensed Victuallers’ Association, who with his usual thoroughness, has exposed some of the more glaring inconsistencies of the law as it applies to hotel licensees. In the course of an interview with Auckland Press representatives on Monday, Mr Palmer said: — I have been asked to give an expression of opinion on “The Shops and Offices Act, 1908, with its amendment of 1910, so far as it is applicable to licensed hotels. It seems to me that there is a strong element of inconsistency introduced into the measure. In the Act of 1908, there are some fifty sections, very few of which affected the licensee’s position. The amending Act changes the position considerably, placing some hotels under its operation and exempting others to a greater or less extent, according to the Arbitration Court awards they may be under. The sections that do affect the hotel licensee are in many respects inconsistent and conflicting in character. For example, section 3 of the amending Act extends and applies the definitions of “shop” and “shop assistant,” contained in section 2 of the principal Act to hotels and That section defines a “shop assistant” as meaning “any person (whether a member of the occupier’s family or not) who is employed by the occupier of a shop in or about the business of the shop,” etc. Sub-section 6 of Section 5 of the amending Act is in evident conflict with this, as it declares that “neither the wife nor the children of the occupier shall, be deemed to be assistants within the meaning of the Act.” Which applies? Section 3, with its etxension of such definitions to members of the occupier’s family as defined in the

principal Act, or the exemption of such members, vide sub-section 6 of section 5 ? . . . .

FURTHER INCONSISTENCIES OF THE LAW.

The inconsistencies of the amending Act may be further illustrated by the provisions of sections 5 and 8. The former deals with the hours during which an assistant may be employed in or about an hotel, or restaurant, or its business. Section 5 emphatically prohibits his employment for more than 10 hours in any one day (vide clause c). Another clause (e) apparently permits of a certain liberty of action in regard to the half-holi-day, for it reads:—“An assistant shall not be employed in or about an hotel or restaurant at any time after 2 o’clock on the afternoon of such working day in each week, as the occupier in the case of each assistant thinks fit.” That it seems to me is intended to permit of an arrangement being come to between the employer and the assistants. But. section 8, after providing that the occupier of an hotel may, with the

previous consent of the Inspector of Factories for the district, require all or any of his assistants to work on the day of the half-holiday, says (b) “That every assistant who works as required on the half-holiday shall be given a whole day’s holiday during the week immediately succeeding the week on which the half-holiday was not allowed.” Clause c of the same section restricts the power of workingassistants on the half-holidays to six times in any one year, and to once in any period of two months of any one year. Section 11 provides a partial remedy for this, by exempting certain districts from its operation. It reads: —“Notwithstanding anything in this Act any award of the Court of Arbitration relating to hotels or restaurants in force on the passing of this Act shall continue in force for the period for which it was made, as if this Act had not been passed.” This means that all hotels in the Auckland, Rotorua, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin districts will be working under one set of conditions, and remain largely exempt while all the others will be compelled to observe the conditions imposed by “The Shops and Offices Act.” ' In the matter of working hours the awards provide for a maximum of 65 hours per week. The Shops and Offices Act limits’ the maximum hours to 62 in the case of males, whose age exceeds 16 years, and of 58 hours in all other

cases, and these are subject to further restrictions, as I have already pointed out.

A DIFFICULT SITUATION.

I must confess I do not see how hotelkeepers who are not under awards, are to comply with the law in the matter of working hours and of the half-holiday, unless they close their houses altogether on the statutory half-holiday and decline to serve meals, or refreshments, to their guests and the public. The restrictions in this direction will make it -very harrassing and difficult, in certain instances for licensees to comply with the law, without seriously inconveniencing the travelling public. It may be said, and with some degree of truth, that the conditions relating to the employment of labour in hotels throughout the Dominion are identical. In theory, that may be so; in practice it is otherwise, as, for example in isolated districts, where it is not always easy to obtain the required efficient labour. And in such cases owing to the licensee’s obligations to the public, he is compelled

to resort to the employment of such labour as may be available and do his best to meet the circumstances of his trade. In doing so, he is liable to be brought into conflict with the law. Personally, I cannot understand why the conditions should be made so variable, nor why, with such extensive and restrictive licensing legislation, it should be considered necessary to bring hotelkeepers under the Shops and Offices Act. Either the awards that are in operation are right and should be general in their application, or they are wrong, and should be ended. If they are right, then there is no reason why such further restrictions, as are contained in the Shops and Offices Act, should be imposed upon hotelkeepers, more especially as, in certain instances, the awards are the result of mutual agreements arrived at by the employers in conference with their employees.

A FURTHER ANOMALY

Another matter that occurs to me is. this. For any amendments of licensing legislation one would naturally look to an amending Licensing. Act, I need not remind you that amendments of. the licensing law were made by separate Act. of. Parliament last year;, yet section 10 of this Shops and Offices Act, amends the Licensing Act of 1908 in an important particular, by removing the restriction

against the employment of a female, other than the wife or daughter of a licensee, in the bar of any licensed house for more than ten'hours in each day of 2 4 hours, and making the section read that she must not be employed in the bar of any licensed house after the hour of eleven at night.

=& * * MR. PALMER'S CONCLUSIONS.

Generally speaking, I am of opinion that in a large number of cases, where hotels are compelled to comply with the Shops and Offices Act, considerable difficulty will be experienced in reconciling the law under that Act, with the obligations imposed upon the licensee by the Licensing Act, the provisions of which, I need hardly remind you, are both restrictive and stringent. Even under the awards, the position is not without its embarrassments, but a certain regard is paid by them to local conditions and circumstances that is not apparent in the Shops and Offices Act. Briefly put the position is some hotels are working under the Shops and Offices Act, but all are bound by the Licensing Act. In the

interests of the public employer and of the employee, I am of the opinion that a maximum of uniformity in the working conditions, as far as practicable, is desirable, if not actually essential to the proper and efficient conduct of hotels.