CHEESE FACTORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1940, Page 2

CHEESE FACTORIES

HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT. A WAR EFFORT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The programme which is being embarked upon by the dairy industry to increase production of cheese by 15,000 tons during the coming production season was discussed at a meeting of the Industrial Emergency Council held in Parliament Buildings this week. The Minister of Labour, Mr Webb, said last evening that to achieve this object it was considered necessary that factories should be enabled to work to the fullest limits. Consultations had, therefore, taken place with both employers' and workers’ organisations with a view to satisfactory working arrangements being made. The council, said Mi’ Webb, unanimously recommended that the provisions of the Dairy Factories Employees' Award, about hours of work be suspended so as to enable 52 hours a week to be worked during the whole of the season in any cheese factory where cheese was being manufactured in the factory on every day of the week. In lieu of overtime payment, a special scale of wages was fixed for workers who were working 52 hours. For work in excess of four hours on Saturday and for time worked on any Sunday or holiday or in excess of 52 hours a week, the special rates prescribed by the award were to be paid. “The arrangement is consideed highly satisfactory, both from the workers’ standpoint, and from the viewpoint of increased production, and is one among the many efforts that are being put forward in the Dominion to assist the Motherland in its war effort,” said Mr Webb.