Legislating for Shops is Tricky

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 155, 21 September 1927, Page 13

Legislating for Shops is Tricky

ADJUSTMENTS IN LAW MILKMEN AND RESTAURANTS (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter j WELLINGTON, Tuesday. \ N indication of the difficulty which he had to face in equitably bridging the gap between Earge and small shopkeepers was given by the Hon. G. J. Anderson, Minister of Labour, who admitted in the House of Representatives this evening that the revision of the Shops and Offices Act had not been a bed of roses, but on the contrary had been fraught with much trouble, and had caused much dissension throughout the Dominion.

In moving to have the Bill committed, Mr. Anderson said that the amendments which were embodied were the result of experience of the working of the original Act of 1921. Some of the clauses had been drafted at the persistent representations of business people. Tobacconists required adjustments. Fruiterers asked for protection from Asiatic competition, and small shopkeepers claimed hardship in having to observe the same hours as larger firms. ThQ Hotel Workers’ Union had asned for a whole day instead of half a day, but this request could not be met because of the multiplicity of that would be involved, and of the small benefit, if any, that would bp derived. Milkmen were exempted from restrictions as to the hours of beginning work. This legislation makes legal what has been carried on in Wellington for the last few years.

Mr. W. E. Parry; it will make it illegal in Auckland. Mr. Anderson: No, it will make it legal anywhere, and conditions are left to the Arbitration Court. Employees in this business are subject to weekly and daily limit as to the number of hours. ASIATIC FRUITERERS The clause governing the registration of fruit shops, as originally drafted, provided especially for Asiatics, but as a result of representations made to the Labour Bills Committee this clause had been deleted, and a new clause drafted making no distinction between Europeans and Asiatics, but making it impossible for Asiatics to do business, as it was alleged that they had done by clubbing together as 3mall co-operative concerns, and carrying on business at all hours. In conclusion the Minister said that the Bill had caused a good deal of trouble, one way and another, in its preparation, but he thought that it met the position fairly. “With the exception of provisions for chemists, tobacconists, fruiterers and bowser pumps,” said Mr. R. McKeen, Wellington South, the Billi 3 a measure which is going to heap a great amount of trouble on the Minister’s head. I can barely credit that it is possible for the Minister to bring forward a measure which is going to extend the hours of shop workers.’* Mr. McKeen „ and several Labour speakers who followed him took particular tixception to the clause extending the hours of female restaurant assistants from 9.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m., and to the fact that milkmen could now make their employees work at any hour at all. Mr. A. Harris, Waitemata, referred particularly to A.uckland and advocated the complete removal of trade restriction if shopkeepers were allowed to keep open as long as they liked, providing no employees were made to work longer hours, things would adjust themselves. In the suburbs of Auckland shopkeepers were having an exceptionally lean time, and if they were compelled to close early many of them would have to go out of business. The evening was the time when suburban shopkeepers could reap their harvest for a couple of hours. This Bill would centralise the whole of the retail business into the nands of big firms, a policy with which he heartily disagreed. Mr. D. G. Sullivan, Avon, suggested that the Minister of Labour had been driven by outside influences to effect these amendments. Mr. Anderson: You can put that out of your mind. I was not driven by Mr. Sullivan: Well, I regret that the Minister should be guilty of such a reactionary piece of legislation. HOURS FOR GIRLS Mr. J. A. Lee, Auckland East, called the Bill a sorry piece of work, and said he would rather see the theatregoer go home without his fish or steak than that young girls should be kept out late. Out of his own long experience of shops, Mr. J. S. Dickson, Parnell, condemned the extension of working hours for girls emplayed in restaurants and intimated that in the committee stage he would move an amendment restricting the hours of such girls to t.ZO p.m. “I am not satisfied with the Bill at all,” Mr. Dickson went on. ‘*l think it contains a lot of things that are not wanted, and the Minister has gone a little too far in more clauses chan this one. We have got to look .fter :he rising generation, and see that temptation is not put: in their way. If the Minister accepts this amendment we can forgive a lot. Mr. P. Fraser, Wellington Cential: Hear! Hear! That’s fair.

Mr. Anderson in reply pointed out that what was being attempted in the Bill was not an extension of the hoc! s of girls employed in marble oars and restaurants, and it did not do :*o. There was a large number of small shops with a soda fountain on one side and confectionery on the ot her, and formerly it had been made compulsory for such shops to nave two entrances, but it was found that this was unworkable. Then the occupiers were allowed to meet the requirements of the law by curtaining off *he confectionery side at closing time, and only the girl serving in the marble bar had to stay on. The Bill merely aimed at allowing the occupier to sell confectionery and close down both confectionery sections and marble bar at the same time, and at the i/io.st it would affect only half a dozen girls in the whole of New Zealand. Referring: to the question cf milkmen, the Minister explained that the clause enabled milk vendors to have elastic hours, but it did not extend the hours at which the men would work. The House then went into committee on the Bill, but reported progress after agreeing to th€« short title. The committee stage will be taken on another day.