82

[c. J. CARRY.

I.—9a.

award fixed the whole day for all hotel and restaurant workers. Here is the provision of the award. Apparently it operates in addition to the statutory weekly half-holiday : " Six-day houses: One half-day's holiday per week, from 2 p.m., shall be given to all persons employed in hotels and restaurants which are open for business on six days of the week. Seven-day houses : One full day off in each week shall he given to all persons employed in hotels and restaurants which are open for business on seven days in the week. , ' In May this year a fresh award was made to cover the restaurants, oyster-saloons, &c., in Sydney. It definitely fixes a five-and-a-half-days working-week. Here is the provision of that award :" A week's working-hours for all male persons employed in restaurants, tea-shops, and oyster-shops shall not exceed fifty-eight and for females fifty-six. The fifty-eight and fifty-six hours respectively above mentioned shall be worked within five and a half days, and not more than twelve hours shall be worked in any one day. Such twelve hours shall be worked within thirteen consecutive hours reckoned from the time the employee goes on duty until the time the employee goes off duty. One hour per day shall be allowed to each employee for meals, and shall be taken during the said thirteen hours, but shallnot be computed as working-time." The hotel award is not yet made, but it too will probably fix a five-and-half-days award working-week. I wish to make the point that these wages awards are made usually by agreement between representatives of the parties. They provide for term holidays every six months in addition. The West Australian Arbitration Court has also provided a full day's holiday weekly, but it is slightly modified. It reads : " During each week of seven days the weekly workers hereinafter mentioned shall be allowed as a holiday — (a) One whole day if practicable; or (b) if it be impracticable to grant one whole day, then two halfdays, commencing immediately after the conclusion of the midday meal, and terminating at the usual starting-time next ensuing morning. No deduction shall be made from the wage of any worker in consequence of the granting of any such holiday or half-holiday.' . Now, I wish to give one or two instances of the working of the principle in actual application here in this city. Take the People's Palace: Here is a large private hotel; it can accommodate up to 130 guests. It is similar to any of the large licensed hotels in the city; it does exactly tin: same trade as a licensed hotel does except that it does not sell liquor or cigars. The tariff is "is. a day, and a little less on terms. The hotel is run purely as a business proposition. Excepting the management, none of the employees are " Army " people. It is covered by the Court's award, which prescribes the same wages as for licensed hotels, excepting waiters and waitresses, who receive 2s. 6d. per week less. As a matter of fact, in certain cases the employees are paid more than the award wages, 'lhe hotel is a paying proposition, and since its success the " Army " lias rented outright another large private hotel in Christchurch, the Leviathan. It has a staff of twenty-one —six men and fifteen women. Every woman worker in the hotel lias enjoyed a full day's holiday weekly since 1010. Every other worker has had a full day's holiday since November, 1912. As a matter of fact, in the kitchen, where four men are employed, the holidays are as follows : The chef and second cook work five days and a half one week and six next, alternately. The fourth hand works five days and a half every week, and the third six days a week. Mr. Downey, "Adjutant" in charge, informs me that when the 1910 Act came in the hours, fifty-two per week, necessitated the employment of one extra girl, and that he was then able to fix on the six-day week for all women workers. The men got two half-days' holiday one week and three half-days the next alternately in 1910 with only three hands in the kitchen; now they get the holidays mentioned. When the hotel L r ot Inisy last summer an extra hand was put on in the kitchen, and the full day was given to all male workers. No casual hands are employed. The casual meals are all only Is. each, the tariff only ss. a day, and yet this hotel, without bar profits, can give even better conditions than the Bill provides. We submit that this hotel is a standing proof of the practicability of the application of the principle. There are other instances. In the Windsor certain employees get Sat unlay half-holiday and all day Sunday off. In the Food Cafe only five days a week are worked. The facts stated are a full answer to the arguments of the hotelkeepers as to the impracticability of the six-day week in hotels. I wish now to give the Committee some evidence in reference to the objection on the grounds of expense. It cannot be argued, even admitting«the clause will make for an increased wages-sheet, that the hotel trade is not well able to afford that extra expense. By far a majority of the hotels in the Dominion are owned by the brewery firms in their respective districts. I cannot say how many are actually owned by the firm of Staples and Co. in this city, but there are many large Wellington City hotels owned by Messrs. (Jilmer and McGuire, the principals of that firm. The Tied Houses Bill Committee report in 1902 stated that the following hotels were tied for beer to Staples and Co. : Grosvenor, Duke of Edinburgh, Commercial, Western, Clyde Quay, Kilbirnie, Island Bay, All Nations, Princess, Shamrock. Metropolitan, Wellington, Thistle Inn, National, Pier, Central, Clarendon, Albion, Cambridge, Princess Theatre, Prince of Wales, Royal Tiger, Park, Brunswick, Masonic, Britannia, Barrett's, Foresters' Arms, Te Aro, Empire, Esplanade, Panama, and Al. The position has been more intensified since. In 1903 the firm paid a dividend of 20 per sent. Mr. Gihner got £9,694 dividend in one year, or £23 16s. a day out of the trade. This, then, is the position :on one end is a profit out of the trade of £23 16s. a day for the brewery shareholder and hotel-owner, and on the other end we are here pleading for one day's rest in seven for the workers in that trade who have worked 365 days a year to promote such dividends. As a matter of actual fact, the hotel trade is so profitable that the hotelkeepers who are objecting to this Bill on the ground of extra expense vie with each other to buy into hotels at £2,000 a year goodwill. Several hotels have been bought at that price in Wellington lately. The expense argument should not weigh with this Committee, lhe proposal for one day's rest in seven is fair and reasonable, and even if it does cost a few pounds a year to grant it the trade can afford it. If it cannot it should cut down the goodwills. The profits in the industry should not be wrung out of the men and women