WORKING CONDITIONS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 101, 23 January 1935, Page 11

WORKING CONDITIONS

Post and Telegraph Employees in Europe

The postal, telegraph and telephone staffs of nearly every European country have 52 rest days in a year, and these as far as possible fall once a week, the International Labour Office at Geneva has discovered as a result of investigations. The regular hours of work are most frequently seven in the day or 42 in the week in the administrative and some of the business services, and eight in the day or 48 in the week in nearly all the technical and most of the business services.

In several cases a limit is placed on the time which employed persons, and particularly those of the travelling staff, may be required by their duties to spend away from their headquarters. The maximum number of hours of absence from hom.e is fixed at about 300 a month. The staff of the postal, telegraph and telephone services receive, moreover, annual holidays without loss of pay; their length varies, but lies in most cases between one week and four weeks.

The regulations governing hours of work in these services in the European countries are most varied in form, but in substance they resemble one another closely in a number of respects, especially in regard to the points abovementioned, and also in the organisation' of work during the night and the limitation of, and compensation for, overtime.

Germany has the largest number of employees in these services, the total being 336,000. Great Britain comes next with 234,000.