D.—4

18

Mr. Hoban: If you ask a driver to go on at Bin the morning, and he is away from his home,, and does not return until Bat night, we expect that he should be paid for the time he is away. A man in a private firm, if he goes away on a journey, is paid for that. You may keep a man standing, but you:'are keeping him here. He may not have anything to do for a time, but you are keeping him on duty, and he ought to be paid. Take a driver, for instance: he stands a certain time, but if anything happens to his engine during that time you will suspend him or dismiss him. If a man is held responsible, why should you not pay him ? Mr. McKerroiv : I quite admit the force of what you say. The present arrangement is this : that this work of driving and standing, and so forth, is intermittent work ; it is not continuous work like that of a blacksmith, a carpenter, or a fitter. It is not of such an arduous nature ; and the department hitherto has deemed the day to be ten hours, and any extra has been paid for time and a quarter, deducting in some instances standing time, because it does happen in some instances —branch services—that there is nearly as much standing time as running time. This is the regulation : " As far as can be arranged consistently with economy and public convenience in the case of employes generally, the working time is not to exceed eight hours per day, or forty-eight hours per week of six working days. In the case of locomotive drivers and firemen, the working time is as far as practicable to be limited to ten hours a day, or sixty hours per week of six working days. Men engaged on intermittent services who are paid extra for overtime, as in the case of drivers and firemen, will not have their whole time counted from first coming on duty until finally leaving, but only such time as the officer in charge may in each case determine may be fairly counted as working time." Mr. Hoban : Do you, as a Commissioner, think that it is a fair regulation ? Mr. McKerrow : I think it is, if it is fairly applied. Mr. Hoban : You mean to tell us that if a man —an engine-driver—goes on at 8 in the morning, and is away all day, returning at 8 at night, you consider that a fair day's work ? Mr. McKerroiv : You know before you engage that the exigencies of the service require that time. I have several services in my mind at this moment which it is only possible to work by the driver being on duty sometimes twelve hours a day. If it were otherwise, supposing there was an unalterable rule that the man should only work eight hours a day, we would actually require to send a special train to bring the man home at the end of that time, and find another man to take his place. Mr. Hoban : That would be absurd. But if you keep a man on from Bto 8 you should pay him : that is our contention. Mr. McKerrow : I will show you how that would work. It is only in the branch services that these long hours are required. Take the time as fourteen hours. The engine-driver and fireman only work six hours, say; their off time is seven hours. On the main line, say an express run, which requires men of greater experience, this run will be perhaps eight hours, and he has no standing time at all; but this man, who does the most important work, would be paid 12s. for eight hours; the other man, on duty fourteen hours, would be paid Bs. for eight hours, four hours at time and a quarter, and two hours time and a half. He would be paid two days' wages as against a more important man's one day. Mr. Hoban : You are proceeding on the basis of paying according to work done. Mr. McKerrow : No ; I am taking it on the basis of eight hours on duty constituting a day's work, and showing how it will work out. Mr. Hoban: Yes ; but the other man will only be at work eight hours. The standing time ought not to be stopped: that is the fault of the locomotive department. Mr. McKerrmv : Take a common-sense view of it. The public must be served. We simply say standing time is not work, and we are not going to bring such an inequality into the service as to pay a less experienced man more than we pay the experienced one. It is quite true that the man is away from his home and his wife and family, and is deprived of his liberty for a time, but there is a little allowance made in respect of that occupation of his private time. It is alleviated in this way in many services : that we alternate the fourteen hours a day with the six hours man. That is done. A man will put fourteen hours in on Monday, but on Tuesday he will only work six. At the w Teek's end his work is sixty hours intermittent work. Mr. Hoban : I understand exactly what you mean. If a man only works six hours a day, if he is on duty fourteen, he should only get his pay for those six hours. We say that is wrong. If I employ a man, and leave him to sit in that corner all day long, I have got to pay him. Mr. McKerroiv : It depends on what arrangement you make. Mr. Hoban : If I employ a man in my office he may be only working two hours, but he has got to be there all day; if I want him at any time I can call on him, and so I must pay him. It is the same with the drivers, you can call on them any time you like. Mr. McKerroiv : But we give them what you call in your profession a retaining fee. The man gets 12s. a day because, before he enters the service, he knows that this is one of the conditions of it. Take a domestic servant, she begins her work when she rises, and is not done until she goes to bed; but she is not working all the time, though she is there to answer the bell, be at the beck of her mistress, and so on. So with sailors. Mr. Hoban : But sailors have certain hours or watches ; and, then, their ship is their home. Mr. McKerroiv : If a man stands at a station for four or five hours we do not see that it would be fair to pay him full wages for that time, and, moreover, pay him time and a quarter and time and a half, according to your proposed scale. Mr. Hoban : Then, I infer this from your remarks : that, although you keep a man standing fourteen.hours in a certain place, though he is not doing any work, you would only pay him for a day's work. Mr. McKerroiv : Yes. The next day he would only work two or three hours.