A SIX-BAY WEEK

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2116, 6 April 1914, Page 4

A SIX-BAY WEEK

The award of th c ' Arbitration Court giving hotel workers , a sixday week, instead of a seven-day week, as at present, appears to hive greatly upset hotel licensees. They state that while they wish to treat then - employees with every fairness, and desire to meet them in the matter of the hours of employment iu ■every reasonable way, the compulsory granting of one clear day's holiday in each week must place them : at a great disadvantage lft the proper conduct of their business, and greatly increase the cost of working, even to the extent of compelling them to raise tlieir scale of charges to the general public. It is not difficult to see that the granting of a whole day's holiday weekly to the cook of a 'sitjall hotel might create a very atvkward situation" for tfw licensee. Meals have to be eooktfd and served every day in the. week and at regular hours each day, and it might not be an easy thing to secure a substitute for the absent cook for one day in each we-ek. So, also, to a certain extent with other hotel employees, »ho are. required to attend to work which is urgently necessary on each of the seven days of the week. It must be plain that it is i not nn easy thing to so arrange the Wrirk of a hotel to pnivide a clear day off each week for its employees without in most cases materially* ?n----masinff the east ftr substantially reducing" tire standard of service' and conveUiencc provided for patrons oij

Uie establishment. Tlrafc the th'fficulty is n very real one is evidenced by the fact ihat both (he Arbitration Court sind Parliament have for so jonjj shirked the responsibility of insisting on the six day week for hotel employees. Yet most people will ho inclined to agruo 'that in lieu of a satisfactory alternative, the granting ; of the right to one clear day's holiday, each week to hotel employees is not tin unroasoiiabk. thing to do. It will unquestionably put the hotelkco pers , to expanse, and probably at times to inconvenience, but the manciple of a six-day wcqk is one which njcets with general approval. _ Aflti this being' tho case, the public cannot complain if, through tiitfrying out the order of the Court, (he liotelkeepcrs find it ncccssarv to pass some of the added eost of running their businesses tsft to their patrons, ft has -become inicreasingly evident that the whole question of the licensed trad* ealjs for the attention of . Parliament The lot of the hotelkeeper is f«r from being a bed of rows. He is largely at the, mercy of the Bivwimf Mokawoly, which owns to many of the .liconsed houses, and which Sfjueeais out of those who wish to take oyer ieoses of hotel properties enormous stmts for goodwill and heavy and _ sometimes extortionate rents. This weald not b.e possible lawfc for the monopoly created by the &tate bv 'the limitation of the number of licensed houses. Tho hot<;!kcoper as a rule has a hard row to : hoe, and though the profits from the-, i hotel business may at times look ; large on paper, it is, in the majority ; ■<sf oases, the Brewing Monopoly, and not the hotelkeeper, that reaks th«r 'harvest, It is th." duty of Parliament- to protect both the -liofarlkeeper a.ni the public from tho jrreea of that monopoly, and during th& com--1115 session jt is to fee hoped soaiethins in this direction wi.il ha accomplished.