DAILY HOURS OF WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 10

DAILY HOURS OF WORK

THE SHORTER WEEK

LEGAL POSITION DEFINED

(By Telecraph — Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

The need for more elasticity in ths framing of legislation was stressed in an Arbitration Court finding issued by Mr. Justice O'Regan today. The point was raised by an application for the interpretation of the position of the Dunedin Cable Tramway employees now that the Court has awarded them a 40-hour week. The agreement under which they were working provid /1 for eight hours of work each day, and the question was whether, with the 40-hour week, a lesser day could be worked so that 40 hours would not be exceeded over six days.

"The Court has no powers to amend the daily hours' of labour when ordaining a 40-hour week," said the Judge. "Hence an order for a 40-hour week cannot have the incidental effect of modifying an eight-hour day provision in an industrial agreement. It must follow that a company has no right to spread the work and thus reduce the working hours per day. The legal position would have been otherwise had the wording of the clause in the agreement been more elastic as, for example, had it been provided that the working hours should not exceed eight per day. Doubtless the real position was not contemplated by either party when the application to reduce the weekly hours was being argued.

"This illustrates very strongly the need for more elasticity in the framing of legislation which, though having a definite objective, is certain in practice to have unexpected repercussions on account of the varying circumstances in different industries," added his Honour.