TYPOGRAPHERS' AWARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 4, 6 January 1936, Page 9

TYPOGRAPHERS' AWARD

QUESTION OF OVERTIME

DECISION OF COURT

•The ■ New- Zealand Typographers' Award, which provides for a forty-two hour week, also provides for one ordinary day of ten hours and when overtime is worked on that day the employer can make up for it by giving time off at the rate of time and a half. This provision led to the Arbitration Court being asked to interpret the clause, as the Typographers' Union held that time off for two hours overtime would reduce the working week to thirty-nine hours; This view was supported by the Inspector of Awards, who applied for the interpretation.

In a reserved judgment the Court refuses' to accept this construction and rules that the week is reduced by one hour only. "The meaning of the award, as we view it," states the judgment, "is that if, on the permitted day, a worker is i-equired to work any additional time not exceeding tv/o hours beyond the normal working hours for that day he will on a subsequent day or days be given, in respect of the additional time so worked, time and a half off his normal working hours for such subsequent day or days."

The Court supports" its decision by a comparison of figures. Supposing that the worker, during a normal week, worked ten hours on Monday and thirty-two hours on the remaining clays of the week, the judgment states, he would work a total of forty-two hours. On the other hand, if he worked twelve hours on Monday (being two hours overtime) and twenty-nine hours on the remaining days (being three hours off) he would work for a total of fortyone.