Public Service Case For More Leave

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31080, 8 June 1966, Page 20

Public Service Case For More Leave

New Zealand is a prosperous country with a steadily increasing productivity, yet leave conditions have remained substantially unchanged for 22 years, says a pamphlet published by the Central Committee of Combined State Service Organisations. The pamphlet is headed: “The case for another week’s leave.”

New Zealand has slipped behind other countries with benefits to employees—especially with paid leave, says the pamphlet, and the Government service has

slipped behind private employers with benefits to employees. Twenty -two years ago the New Zealand wage-earners entitlement of paid annual

I holiday was set at two weeks land this is still the statutory | entitlement of the wage- ’ earner and the basic entitlement for the Government employee. The country's national productivity has risen 20.1 per cent in the last nine years, the pamphlet says. Wages have also risen, but not enough to ensure that the workers get their fair share of the fruits of that increased productivity. After allowing for price rises, award rates have risen in the same period by less than three per cent. This exposed the fallacy of the argument that the country could not afford more paid leisure. Past increases in paid leisure for employees had never halted the steady increase of the national productivity. “In other countries it is realised more and more that justice to wage and salaryearners has to include forms of reward Other than wage increases. These are normally referred to as ‘fringe benefits,’ and one of the most important is paid holidays,” the pamphlet says. Figures published by the International Labour Office in Geneva showed that the French worker’s hours fell between 1958 and 1963 from 1920 to 1896, a year and the Australian worker’s hours fell from 1912 to 1888. The number of hours worked by the bulk of wage earners in New Zealand remained at 1928.

Employees in New Zealand’s State services were entitled to only two weeks’ paid annual leave a year until they had been employed continuously for five years or attained promotion to Class IV or equivalent salary. They were then granted three weeks, with very few exceptions.

The pamphlet then lists the annual leave conditions of several countries as follows.— Britain: All public servants are entitled to three weeks’ annual leave, with increments for years of service, clerical officers- to four weeks, and senior officers to six weeks. Sweden: All wage-earners guaranteed four weeks’ paid annual holiday by statute. Finland: Public servants work a 37-hour week most of the year (32 in summer), and receive 26 days' paid leave a year, increased to 36 days after 15 years’ service. United States: Employees of many State governments work a 35-hour week and get four week’s annual leave. Twentyfive per cent of all plant workers in the United States, and 38 per cent of all office workers, get four weeks’ paid annual holiday. Italy: All workers get three weeks’ annual holiday plus 17 public holidays (compared with 9 to 11 in New Zealand). In New Zealand all bank officers, harbour board tugboat employees, the New Zealand Shipping Company clerical staff, Wellington Sports Club greenkeepers, passenger transport workers and hosnital board employees, all get three weeks’ annual leave, says the pamphlet. Private industry had caught up with the Public Service in benefits to employees, says the namphlet, and it was time the Government aligned itself with other good employers in ensuring that social progress and social justice in New Zealand did not become empty catchwords.