MILK ROUNDSMEN

Evening Star, Issue 22446, 17 September 1936, Page 15

MILK ROUNDSMEN

A GAP IN LEGISLATION PROSECUTION HALTED [Per United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, September 10. An apparent gap in the law presented a problem to the magistrate, Mr E. C. Lewey, in the court to-day, when charges under the Shops and Offices Act affecting the employment of assistants and muk roundsmen were brought against several of the larger milk vendors who employ labour and control fairly large establishments. The Magistrate held that the _ premises in which the defendants carried on business could not all be classed as factories, nor were they shops. He thought rather that the legislation was lacking in any provision specifically covering them. One establishment in which milk was regularly pasteurised he held to be a factory. The Magistrate formally dismissed one charge and adjourned the others sine die to allow the Labour Department to consider whether it would carry the matter further. It was stated during the hearing that the decision in the cases would bo of the greatest importance in the milk vending business in the city. One of the defendants in evidence said that unless the position of the large businesses could be clearly defined the distribution of milk would be forced back entirely on to individual roundsmen, who employed no labour. The charges were of employing men in excess of 48 hours a week and failing to pay overtime, employing men as shop assistants and failing to pay them overtime for the extended hours, employing men for more than five hours continuously without an interval of at least one hour for a meal, employing men before 3 a.m.. and failing to allow employees a holiday from 1 p.m. on one working day.