HOURS & PAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1941, Page 5

HOURS & PAY

I MR NASH ON 40=HOUR WEEK REPLY TO OPPOSITION CRITICISM. TRADE UNION DOMINATION DENIED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Opposition criticism of the 40-hour week was replied to by the ActingPrime Minister, Mr Nash, when winding up the Imprest Supply Bill debate in the House of Representatives early yesterday morning. Mr Nash said that the Opposition and the Press were pressing that the workers should not have overtime rates.

Any industrial worker could work as many hours as his employer wished, Mr Nash said, the only limitation being on the pay. The Opposition was pressing not for extra hours but for a reduction of pay. He affirmed that every hour that could be worked would be worked if necessary for the war effort. Compulsion to work longer hours as was suggested might bring lesser goods. When asked if he approved of slaughtermen going to the races, Mr Nash replied that the relative right of a man who had given sweated labour was 10,000 times greater than that of other individuals. If the production of goods for the war was affected the men should not have gone. Mr Nash emphasised the limit to the number.of hours which could be effectively worked, and quoted an objective opinion by a banker that given a sufficient number of skilled workers to keep the machines going the optimum was probably not more than 48 hours a week. He thought more sacrifices had been made by the workers than by any other section of the community. Mr Nash said that no one could dominate the Government, and his experience was that the trade unions did not want to dominate it. He had found that. when the Government wanted help from the workers the trade union leaders had given more help than any other section of the community he had been associated with. The workers of the Dominion in the total had done a magnificent job during the last two years. He knew that there were some who caused trouble, but in the main they were wholeheartedly behind the war effort.