WORK AND WAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2058, 1 May 1907, Page 2

WORK AND WAGES.

WORKERS AX WOOLWICH. Press Association.- —Copyright. Received 11.24 p.m., April 30. LONDON, April 30. Tlio War Office states that there will ho only sixty discharges weekly from the whole of the ordnance factories at Woolwich. No minimum establishment has yet been fixed. SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY. (Per Press Association.] TIMAIUJ, last night. Considerable uneasiness has been caused here by the distribution of a circular by the Labor Department demanding compliance with the Factories Act, 1901, requiring women and boys under 18 employed in factories to be given a weekly halfholiday on Saturday. Hitherto they have been given Thursday, the same afternoon as shops and drapers who employ tailoresses, dressmakers, and milliners, and their country customers will be greatly inconvenienced,- as Saturday is recognised as market 1 day by country people. The subject ' was brought up at the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce 1 this evening, and a resolution was passed requesting the Minister of ‘ Labor to allow the Act to remain * suspended as heretofore until Parlia- J meat meets, and a deputation was appointed to wait on the Hon. W. Hall-Jones on his visit this week. OAMARU, last night.

At .a meeting of the Employers’ Association to-uiglit it was decided 1 1 emphatically jirotcst against the action of the Labor Department in withdrawing the permission to close factories on the same day as the local half-holiday for shops and substituting Saturday instead. The resolution is to be forwarded to the Minister for Labor.