Overtime Payment.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 265, 12 November 1904, Page 3

Overtime Payment.

(Her Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 11. The Arbitration Court was engaged with a question of overtime today. Every award of the court contains itto.vjsj.oni for holiday payment. The Drivers' Union award of 1901, •which was under review, contains a iprovision that .drivers working on icertain of the statutory holidays .•Should bo paid .douhle time. What ithe parties .wish to .determine is the dnterpretation tp be )lilftccd upon this •clause. The position js t that when a statutory holiday .(nibs in any •week a driver has to be paid full time for <hc week although he does not work on holidays. The question to bo answered is : Supposing a driver is called upon to wock on holidays,, what will he be paid ? Will he receive payment for the full week, plus one day, or will he receive a full week's pay plus a double day's pay for the holiday ?. For the employers it was asked that it should be made clear that double time meant only an ordinary day's pay plus another day, and that time and a half did not mean time and a half in addition to the ordinary day. Evidence was called, but it failed to, establish any custom. It appeared that so little work had been done on holidays that the difficulty of interpretation hail not seriously presented itself. The president of the court hinted IhaJ- in the next award the meaning of a similar provision would be made qfcite clear.