SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1904. OVERTIME AND HOLIDAYS. The Shop-Assistants' Deputation.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1904, Page 6

SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1904. OVERTIME AND HOLIDAYS. The Shop-Assistants' Deputation.

THERE was a breezy cheerfulness about the shop assistants' deputation to the Premier on Monday night. If they have any grievances, the said grievances don t get them down and worry them to Ly great extent. While it is obvioJ from what was said at the meetr ing' that most of the shop-keepers ot Wellington are qualifying for haxps and crowns, and are "real good sorts, xt is also apparent from the newspaper report that every shop-keeper Is not aching to pay sick pay grant holidays, and play the role of Lord Bountiful to his work people. * * About that question of over-time. King Dick, with his usual readiness to set matters straight, suggested that "In cases where employers give foureen days' holidays in the year independent of the statutory holidays, and pay employees when ill— in such cases the over-time conditions of the statute shall not apply " Seems to us, while the Suggested provision partly meets the cafe, that there is no limit laid down compelling the employer to allow the assistant to go home to sleep ; that, in fact for the concession of fourteen days' holiday m the year, an employer, if he so desired, could legally much more than make up for the concession. * * It is absolutely necessary, we believe, that shop people— especially girls— should not do too much overtime, whether they are paid for it or not. The payment doesn't compensate for lost recreation or impaired health. Furthermore, the shopkeeper who works his staff overtime without recompensing them is earning money all the time with their labour, and, if he is a fair man, he doesn't mind spending a proportion of his gains, and conceding a reasonable annual holiday too * * * As shop-hands go, we don't think the Wellington people have a particularly rough time, and they are a cheerful crowd generally, but no provision whereby a shop-keeper might, if so disposed, work his hands overtime indefinitely, should be made. The universal half-holiday, in the city at least, is bound to come m time. Where all shops close, there is no hardship to anyone. In the country, where the bucolic population makes a sort of a shopping festival on Saturday, the Saturday holiday will

possibly never find favour, but to the city shop-hand the institution would be a distinct boon, and would recompense the shop-keeper by sending his hands back on Monday morning refreshed and invigorated by the day and a-half spell. • * * We contend that the shop-assist-ant works as hard as the aveiage tradesman, with longer hours for less pay. His expenses are greater, seemg he has to dress the part He (or she) should therefore receive every reasonable consideration, for in. numberless cases the shop-hand is working over-time when the unionist is in his beauty sleep.