WAR-TIME WORK

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21226, 24 September 1940, Page 4

WAR-TIME WORK

EXTRA HOURS REQUEST UNION STATES ATTITUDE OBSERVANCE OF THE AWARD Replying to statements regarding labour laws and war-time production, brought into prominence by a letter from the Hamilton firm of A. M. Bisley and Company, Mr J. Neale, secretary of the Northern Industrial District Engineering and Related Trades Industrial Union of Workers, states the attitude of the union in the matter. A. M. Bisley and Company wrote to the Labour Department asking for a ruling whether the firm was to be allowed to continue to employ its staff for 45 hours a week at standard rates of pay instead of 40 hours. The men were willing to work the extra time, the firm wrote, and the principle of permitting greater war-time production at standard rates of pay was involved. “In the first place,” writes Mr Neale, “the Department of Labour was requested to prosecute the firm, not because an application had been made for an extension of hours, but because the union alleged the firm had committed breaches of the award. If it is suggested that a magistrate would ignore a breach because the firm rightly or wrongly claimed there was some justification for an extension of hours, then there is indeed something very wrong with our laws or administrators. Obligation of Workers “Mr Justice Callan has held ‘that it is also relevant to remember that the observance of the provisions of awards subject employers to onerous obligations and restrictions of many kinds, and that to permit some employers to obtain the performance of duties covered by an award without observing the appropriate provisions as to wages, hours, holidays, etc., puts at a disadvantage those employers who comply with awards, and inevitably tends toward the breakdown of the system which awards are designed to maintain.’ “Where in the interests of the State some relaxation of existing customs is required, the Engineering Union can be relied on to give the same whole-hearted support it has already shown in agreeing to extended hours for munition manufacture and the requirements of the essential dairying industry. The merits of the application under review have failed to satisfy the Industrial Emergency Council, whose personnel includes employers’ representatives, and has been refused.”