“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1937. A HOLIDAY TANGLE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 451, 5 June 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1937. A HOLIDAY TANGLE

By a magisterial decision employers have been told that they must be given an additional day s pay for holidays that fall on a day on which their factories would ordinarily be closed. This decision has been made in respect to Anzac Day on the strength of a carelessly drafted award of the Arbitration Court, but it also applies to any award holiday which may fall on a Saturday, when factories are closed in accordance with the five-day week. The Manufacturers’ Association is well advised to ap _ proach the Government for amending legislation, for it was never intended, when holidays were given to the workers under awards, that there should be more than a day of cessation from work without loss of pay. Holidays will have to be looked at from a new angle with the coming of the five-day week, for while it is arguable that Anzac Day ought to be celebrated on Sunday if it falls on a Sunday, it is also arguable that the inclusion of other holidays in an award is a clear indication that they are to be a deduction from the working year, whatever the calendar may say. In the new industrial era in which paid annual holidays are to be recognised it is a question whether so many casual holidays should be sprinkled into awards, or at any rate whether the employer should not have the advantage if the date falls on a non-working day. The proper approach to this question is through a consideration of the increased burden that industry is being asked to carry. Primarily that is a matter for the Arbitration Court, but the Government has embarked on a policy of heavy taxation, and taxation depends upon production. Wealth and income, in other words, must be created before they can be redistributed even under the Socialistic programme. And the surest way in which to distribute wealth is to pay attention first to its creation. New Zealand at the moment is obsessed with the policy of redistribution, but that policy is placing shackles on industry and commerce, and in an economic sense must tend to dry up the sources of national income.