§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSI beg to move, in page 4, to leave out from the word "shall" in line 11 to the word "and" in line 14, and to insert instead thereof the words:
(i) be entitled in respect to any time worked beyond the normal hours of employ- 903 ment prevailing prior to the order to payment at the ordinary rate of wages plus fifty per cent.; or(ii) immediately the order ceases to operate, have their working hours readjusted so as to afford relief to a like number of hours as the extra hours worked consequent upon the order; or(iii) be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked with full pay.I am pleased to note the readiness on all sides of the House to enter into a spirit of compromise on this Bill, but, so far as this particular Amendment is concerned, we are hoping and expecting that not only the promoter of the Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, but that all Members in all parts of the House will feel disposed to accept it. What is it for which we are asking here? First of all, traders in special areas in various parts of the country are seeking a distinct trading advantage over their colleagues in other parts of the country. They are granted permission in certain circumstances to keep open their business premises for a considerable number of hours for a period of no less than four months during the year. We are told by the supporters of the small shopkeepers, and particularly by Members who come from seaside resorts, that if we do not grant this very special privilege to seaside resorts or fishing places, or what is termed loosely, holiday resorts, we shall tend to destroy their businesses, and, at least, to embarrass not only the shopkeepers but a large number of their potential customers. I presume that, say what we will, Clause 6 will remain in the Bill, and these special privileges will be conceded to the shopkeepers in these particular areas. What we claim is that there should be displayed the same spirit of compromise which dominated the House in 1912 when the half-day holiday was being sacrificed by the shop assistants and the shopkeeper, rightly, came forward and conceded a 14 days' holiday, with full pay, as a concession granted to the shop assistants who were losing their half-day holiday. We ask that the same compensatory advantage should be given under this Bill where the shop assistant is called upon for four months in the year to sacrifice the privileges for which he has fought.904 The Home Secretary may say that, once an application has been made under the Act, the local authority can specify the number of hours and the conditions under which the shop assistants shall work, but the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that invariably we find, in seaside resorts especially, that the councils are packed by traders who have little or nothing in common with their assistants, and it is very little that we can expect from that particular section of the community. As Parliament is granting these special privileges to shopkeepers, we think that Parliament ought to safeguard the interests of the employés. We are seeking that where a concession of this description has been granted to shopkeepers in holiday resorts, fishing resorts and so forth, and they are permitted to remain open almost for unlimited hours for four months during the year, that for any time worked in excess of the normal number of hours operating in those districts prior to the passing of the Act, time and a half should be paid to the shop assistants. We think that is a fairly reasonable concession.
If the traders, who know how much business is transacted after the normal closing hours, realise that they are obliged to compensate the shop assistants for the extra hours they are called upon to work, they will take that into serious consideration when the application is made to the local authority. They will balance up the accounts for and against and, presumably, on the balance of evidence their application will be made or withheld. Therefore we shall not impose an unfair burden upon the traders by this Amendment because the traders will know in advance whether or not the extra business done after the normal closing hour would be sufficient to warrant them in seeking an extension, knowing that they will have to pay their shop assistants at the rate of time and a half for the extra number of hours they would be called upon to work. It is due to the shop assistants that where Parliament grants concessions which lengthen their hours of employment for a certain period during the year, Parliament ought to insist that at the conclusion of the four months period, the shop assistants shall go back to the normal number of hours that they were employed prior to the Special Order becoming operative. We 905 think that, as in 1912, so in 1928, where the shop assistant makes a sacrifice as the result of an extension of hours for this period, holidays ought to be granted.
In seeking these compensatory advantages for the sacrifice that the shop assistants will be called upon to make, we feel that the spirit of compromise should operate and that hon. Members should agree to this Amendment. At the present time, the shop assistant has no protection from the point of view of working hours except the protection given to young persons under the Act of 1921, which limits the hours for young persons in shops to 74 per week. So far as the mature shop assistant is concerned, where the age exceeds 18 years, he can be employed for 70, 80, 90 or 100 hours per week. In view of the lack of guarantees or safeguards for the shop assistant and the fact that special concessions are being granted to shopkeepers in special areas, it is not unfair to seek guarantees and protection for the shop assistant. I hope that the Home Secretary will not be unwilling to advise the House to accept the Amendment, so that we shall see the sympathy and the sense of equity which is so often referred to in this House, translated into practice. If we take that course, we shall feel when we leave this House to-day that we have had in mind the trader, the special areas in regard to concessions and that we have not forgotten the shop assistant who is called upon to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
§ Mr. PALINGI beg to second the Amendment.
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSWith all the desire in the world to meet hon. Members opposite, I think this Amendment is going too far.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSOh!
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSI have said that it is going a little too far. The House has decided, the Standing Committee upstairs decided, and the Committee which considered the matter previously decided that there should be special exemption made in regard to places like Blackpool, Yarmouth, Brighton and other health and holiday resorts. We all like to go on holidays, and we want conveniences for shopping. The question of the position of the shop assistant was considered by 906 the Committee, and they came to the conclusion that special provisions should be made in the Order for the protection of the shop assistant against unduly long hours. That has been very carefully provided for in Clause 6, which the hon. Member for the Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) attacked. Under that Clause, where a local authority makes any Order permitting shops in any holiday resorts to be kept open for longer hours, the Order—
shall be made subject to such conditions as the local authority may consider necessary for securing that shop assistants affected by the order shall not be employed in or about the business of a shop for more than such number of hours as may be specified by the order.We do not say that the shops in holiday resorts shall be open, but we give power to the local authority to make Orders for extended hours, and, in so doing, they are to provide particularly that the shop assistants shall not be employed for more than a specified number of hours. If we are going to allow certain shops to be kept open until ten o'clock or eleven o'clock at night, the local authority, in so doing, may put in a specific Clause saying that the shop assistants shall not be employed more than the number of hours specified in the Order. That is going as far as it is wise to go. The Amendment really becomes very complicated indeed, and I doubt whether local authorities would be able to make it applicable. The hon. Member says that shop assistants employed more than the normal number of working hours shall be paid time and a-half for the extra hours, and that:immediately the Order ceases to operate, have their working hours readjusted so as to afford relief to a like number of hours as the extra hours worked consequent upon the order.It seems to suggest that they will go to sleep during the winter. Is this not going a little too much into detail? Shop assistants have the interests of their employers at heart. They are not paid by the hour like an ordinary trade union worker. They are paid a weekly wage. We are not, dealing with great stores and great emporiums such as we have in London, where the hours are regular and shop assistants paid a trade union rate of wages, but with small shops in these large holiday towns, where the small visitor to Blackpool or Yarmouth wants to 907 make certain purchases while on holiday. The real truth is that the man or woman who is employed in a small shop of that kind takes the rough with the smooth. He gets so much per week, his employment is a permanency, he becomes part of the business. I do not think we should place these small restrictions on the power of a local authority. We are handing over to the local authorities the power to say that shop assistants are not to be made to work too long hours, and they can specify the number of hours that they shall work. The Amendment is really going a little too far.
§ Mr. GROVESCan we compromise, and put in time and a quarter?
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSI propose to leave it to local authorities to see that shop assistants are not harshly teated. That is the broad principle of the Measure, and that is the principle upon which we can safely go.
§ Mr. GROVESI should like to support the Amendment. The observations of the Home Secretary, although he has been talking about Yarmouth bloaters and things at Blackpool, show that in his perambulations he probably got to Margate. They are not actual experience. The trouble in our seaside towns is that the local authority is comprised mainly of people who are interested in the welfare of the town. There is nothing wrong in that, and I am not imputing motives to the members of local authorities, but in their enthusiasm to create interest in their towns they will go the fullest extent authorised by Acts of Parliament. My experience of seaside resorts leads me to believe that it does not work out quite so nicely as indicated by the Home Secretary. It would appear from the right hon. Gentleman that they work in the summer and rest in the winter. Literally that is true.
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSI know as much about it as you do.
§ Mr. GROVESI am not referring to this House, but to shop assistants in seaside resorts. They have to work many hours in the summer; from sunrise to sunset. They get the sack in the winter. In October the small shops in most of the east coast seaside towns close down. If you care to go to Southend you will 908 find as soon as the summer evenings close and the people cease to go on their excursions, the ordinary small shops close, and the assistants are put off until the advent of next summer.
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSIf that is so, if these small shops close down and the assistants get the sack in the winter, how will this new Clause help them at all?
§ Mr. GROVESI was answering the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, made in quite a friendly criticism of the Amendment. He put the view that we are asking for something which is more than just. The Home Secretary said that they must take the rough with the smooth. I agree with that, generally speaking. I have been a workman all my life until I came here, and I have learned to take the rough with the smooth. We have to take it here. It is all right for hon. Members opposite who are on the shift system. We on this side have to do it all the time. If things were as the Home Secretary indicates, I would not support the Amendment, but it is because shop assistants in seaside resorts get all the rough in the summer and all the rough in the winter that I support it. If the right hon. Gentleman is able to disprove what I am saying, I will conclude my remarks at once and urge my hon. Friend not to press the Amendment. But it is not the case that shop assistants have to take the rough with the smooth. They have to take all the rough and get none of the smooth. I support the suggestion that any hours worked over and above the normal working hours which were operating before the the order comes into effect should be paid, as in every workshop and factory, at the rate of time and a half. There is nothing harsh or unjust in such a claim.
My own experience with regard to places like Woolworth's is that they would engage their girls for the additional hours allowed. I am talking of seaside resorts only now, and of the large establishments of such firms. I am not attacking this particular firm. Such establishments engage a large number of young girls. The seaside resorts would offer an additional inducement for such shops to be kept open probably till 10.30 p.m. I know from experience of such firms in my area that they take advantage of the fact that they can at 909 certain seasons keep the girls at work on Thursday afternoons, and that they do so. They do not exhibit any sort of chivalry, taking the rough with the smooth. They do it without giving written notice, and call upon the girls to stay on Thursday afternoons to take stock or to decorate the windows. That happens to-day where I live, and is allowed by the Shop Hours Act of to-day. Therefore I think I am fortified in the view that if this House gives to shopkeepers in seaside resorts additional powers to engage their assistants for extra hours because of the particular circumstances connected with the arrival on holiday of many people from outside the area, some of them will make use of the powers.
None the less I believe that the general community of shopkeepers living in the seaside resorts would be glad to fall in with any compromise suggested by this House, and that if they desired, in the interests of their business, to engage their assistants, male or female, for hours above those previously understood to be the normal working hours, they would be pleased to fall in with the idea of paying an additional rate per hour. That would be done in the case of a coach-building or engineering factory. If the shopkeepers took such a course instead of expecting something for nothing they would be met in a spirit of good will. If the Home Secretary would accept the Amendment I believe that the general community of shopkeepers would respond in a spirit of compromise. It is wrong to call upon shop assistants to work additional hours merely to suit the convenience of visitors. If the longer hours are for the convenience of visitors to seaside resorts, the Amendment will give an opportunity to the Government to respond by giving to the assistants a more adequate return for the additional services they will be expected to render.
§ 2.0 p.m.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYI have a good deal of sympathy with the Amendment, but I cannot agree that we should deal with the subject on such a Bill as this. I know a good deal about shop assistants and their life, both in large towns and in seaside resorts. I know the abnormal conditions that prevail daring the season in seaside resorts, but for the 910 life of me I cannot see how we are going to get a local authority to concern itself with the question of the payment of the assistants. I do not know of any other Act or Regulation dealing with wages that puts on the local authority the onus of ascertaining what wages are being paid, and then of saying, "You shall now pay time-and-a-half after a certain hour." I maintain that such a thing is absolutely unworkable. The last speaker talked about some of the large bazaars which employ a large number of girl assistants. Speaking as a shopkeeper I would welcome anything that would compel people such as the hon. Member mentioned to pay reasonable rates of wages, not merely for extra work, but for the ordinary work of the week. We private traders have to compete with the bazaars, and if we pay, as I hope we all do, proper remuneration to our assistants, and there are other people who do not, we are at a disadvantage in our competition with them.
Notwithstanding that I cannot see how we can deal with this question in the way that is suggested by the Amendment. Any question of the payment of shop assistants should be dealt with in a separate Bill. This Bill is to deal only with the question of the closing of shops, and if we were to deal with the thorny subject of shop assistants' hours and the far more thorny subject of their pay, we should be doing something neither reasonable nor right. As to seasonal trade, no doubt the girls and the male assistants work rather longer hours during the season than in the winter time. But there is in the Bill something entirely new, which does protect the interests of those assistants as regards hours. I submit that by the Amendment we would be asking the local authority to do more than they should do. It has been suggested that in the seaside resorts the majority of the people serving on the local authorities are traders. In some districts that is true and in others it is not. Even if it is true, speaking as one who has served on a local authority and knows the type of men who serve on such bodies, I say that I do not believe they would let their private interests interfere with their public duty. I say that in all fairness to people who are giving a good deal of valuable time to the service of the public 911 on these councils without any chance of any remuneration. They are sacrificing time that they could devote to their businesses or their pleasure, and it is a reflection upon them to suggest that they would put anything into force because it would pay them in their businesses.
What does happen in the case of the seasonal workers? It is usual for them to receive higher payment than they would receive if engaged as all-the-year-round assistants. I am glad to think that in the past, as far as the individual shopkeeper is concerned—I mean the man in charge of his own business—you rarely hear of any difficulty at all about working conditions or pay. Probably that is the reason why the trade union that caters for this class of worker has been so unsuccessful in getting anything like a big membership. There is that personal touch between employer and employed in this industry which tends to good feeling all round.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope)I would remind the hon. Member that this Amendment only deals with the case of holiday resorts, and he seems to be arguing the question at large.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYI was dealing with a point which was raised by other speakers in relation to the payment of assistants. I was trying to argue that where it is a question between an employé and an employer who is himself engaged in the business no difficulty arises. At the seasonal times extra payment is made, unless the employé is engaged for the whole year. The custom in the trade in this respect is quite different from the ordinary custom, and I can state from my own knowledge that where extra assistants have to be engaged, and where they have to work longer hours, it is usual to pay them more than the ordinary rate. Furthermore, in most of these places commission is paid on sales, and, therefore, the busier the shop the better the pay.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSIs the hon. Member aware that multiple firms are in the habit of diverting their shop assistants from provincial towns to seaside resorts during this period of four months. In the provincial towns, the assistants have established certain conditions of employ- 912 ment and wages, and the very act of diverting them to the seaside resorts for the seasonal period, unless some kind of protection has been arranged, merely means that the multiple firms are taking advantage of the shop assistants and robbing them of conditions previously agreed upon.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYAs I am not engaged in the management of a multiple firm, I admit quite freely that I am not aware of that condition, and I accept the hon. Member's statement because I believe he has knowledge, owing to his connection with the trade union movement, of how these things are done. But I suggest that we ought not to attempt to deal with a question of that kind in a Shop Hours Bill. As far as the trade unions who deal with shop assistants are concerned, most of their membership is drawn from the staffs of the multiple firms. The reasons are obvious. I suggest that that is a matter more for the trade union concerned to take up with the employers concerned, and that we ought not to try to smuggle through a provision in a Bill such as this for dealing with it. If the hon. Member introduces a Bill specifically to deal with that question, it is possible that I and several of my colleagues, who have some knowledge of the retail trade, will be prepared to support him, just as I supported the Bill of the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Taylor) dealing with shop assistants' hours. I repeat, however, that we ought not to introduce an alteration of this drastic nature in the law of the land—one for which we cannot quote a precedent—in a Bill of this kind, because there are big principles involved.
§ Miss BONDFIELDI have a suggestion to make which may shorten the discussion. To meet the criticism that this Amendment is complicated and that it deals with wages, I would suggest the substitution of an Amendment, the effect of which would be to leave Sub-section (2, b) of the Clause as it is at present, but to add these words:
and shall be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked with full pay.—dropping out all the other words in the Amendment on the Order Paper.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) 913 must first ask leave to withdraw his Amendment and the hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Bondfield) can then move the Amendment which she has indicated.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSDo I understand that the hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Bondfield) cannot move it as an Amendment to the Amendment?
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERNo, because the Amendment on the Paper seeks, first, to omit certain words from the Bill, whereas the Amendment suggested by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Miss Bondfield) seeks to add certain words.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSI am prepared to take what I conceive to be the grave risk of asking the leave of the House to withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Miss BONDFIELDI beg to move, in page 4, line 14, after the word "order," to insert the words "and shall be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked with full pay."
This proposal is in harmony with the intention of the 1912 Act, which very specifically made allowance for those assistants who were deprived of a hall-holiday. This is a situation where a large number of assistants will have their hours extended, and we think it fair to give them this concession in lieu of certain privileges which will be taken from them by an extension of the hours under the closing order. I am sure the House is in sympathy with the proposal, and as the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) has said, it is already the practice of a great many fair employers to give compensatory holidays in respect of the Christmas and summer seasonal rushes. This addition to the Bill would tend to level up all the firms to what is rapidly becoming the practice in the trade.
§ Mr. GROVESI beg to second the Amendment.
§ Sir W. PERRINGI support the Amendment. I have no sympathy with multiple firms, or firms of any other kind, who want to get 10 or 15 hours' extra work out of their employés in the season without any recompense. I am conscious that the concession which is being made to seaside resorts for these four months 914 has this effect—that in a large number of cases the seasonal hands are not employed all the year round. Where people are employed all the year round the employers ease their time in the winter months, and there is a levelling up on the whole year, but, where the employment is seasonal, the employés have no holiday in the summer because they are engaged in ministering to the wants of the people who are holidaying. Those of us who represent the ordinary retail traders, apart from the large multiple shops, ought to do nothing which would be detrimental to the fair and equitable treatment of assistants or give any ground of advantage to firms who do not practise what we conceive to be right and proper.
The words that are proposed to be added to this Clause do fit in with the suggestion that an equivalent time should be given either at the end of the season or during the season at a normal rate of pay—not necessarily overtime rate of pay. Nobody who understands business life can say that people should not have a holiday at some period of the year. I want to reinforce the idea, because these people are employed in the summer months, when everybody else is having a holiday, and then they have to have their holiday, say, in the autumn, and they have my sympathy. When we realise that there are Government servants who have six, eight and 10 weeks' holiday a year, we are not asking too much for the people with whom we are now dealing, and I shall support this Amendment.
§ Lieut.-Commander BURNEYI only rise to say one word in support of this Amendment. I think it does certainly cover all the various points which have been raised in criticism against the original Amendment, and although I had not the privilege of serving on the Committee, I was feeling rather concerned by the way the Debate was going that the shop assistants were not being thoroughly protected by leaving it entirely to the local authorities, without giving them any guidance. This Amendment gives the local authorities guidance, and I hope the House will accept it.
§ Sir V. HENDERSONIt is only right that I should point out that there is a difficulty about this Amendment from the administration point of view. Those 915 who were on the Committee will remember that I made a definite promise that between the Committee stage and the Report stage I would look into this point. I have spent a considerable time trying to find a form of words to meet it, but I have always failed, the reason being that Section 11 of the Shops Act, 1912, to which the hon. Lady has referred as a precedent, is a Clause which, from an administration point of view, refers to the shop and not to the individual. It is in no way concerned with the individual as such.
§ Miss BONDFIELDIt says:
Allow all his shop assistants a holiday.
§ Sir V. HENDERSONThat is presumably done by the shutting of the shop.
§ Miss BONDFIELDThe words are:
that it is the practice to allow all his shop assistants a holiday on full pay of not less than two weeks in every year, and keeps affixed in his shop a notice to that effect.Under those conditions, the half-holiday need not be given to the assistant.
§ Sir V. HENDERSONIf the hon. Lady reads it like that, she is entitled to do so, but I do not so read it. This particular Amendment, very much more than the provision in the Act of 1912, refers to the individual and not to the shop at all. The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) has already pointed out that one of the difficulties is that a number of these people go from town to country and back from country to town. If this Amendment be accepted, who is to give the holiday—the man in the town or the man in the country? In many cases the employer is a different one, and, if so, it makes the working of the proposal impossible.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSThe hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree that whether the shop assistant left the provinces to go to a seaside resort to work for a multiple firm or a private firm makes no difference. For whomsoever the assistant worked during the seasonal period, that person, company or concern ought to provide the holiday.
§ Sir V. HENDERSONIf you take the summer season from May to September, the assistant would not get a holiday during that time. If the shop shuts, 916 and, as the hon. Member has pointed out, many of these shops do shut, the employer will have the obligation of sending the man away for a holiday at his expense after the shop is shut, before the man, possibly, goes back to another employer in another part of the country.
§ Mr. WILLIAMSWhat actually happens, in fact, is this. Immediately the summer season is over at the seaside resorts, the man or woman, as the case may be, departs for the provinces, and as long as the persons who employ the shop assistants during the seasonal period provide the wages for the holiday, then their obligation is at an end, and whether the assistant goes for a holiday, or uses the money in any other direction, is entirely at the option of the person who has worked the longer hours.
§ Sir V. HENDERSONAs I read it, the assistant would be entitled to a holiday corresponding to the extra hours worked. It does not say anything about the payment of extra wages.
§ Miss BONDFIELD"with full pay."
§ Sir V. HENDERSONI am quite willing to leave this to the House, but I want to warn the House that I have been advised—and as I say, I have been looking at this question a good deal between the Committee stage and the Report stage—that there are administrative difficulties in the wording of this Amendment. I, myself, framed a form of words almost exactly the same, and they were open to objection. If the House pass this Amendment, it will be upon their own responsibility, and if any difficulty arises, I want it to be realised that I uttered a warning.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYI want to ask the Mover of this Amendment, with which I have a good deal of sympathy, who is to be responsible for seeing that the assistants get the money? We know what a number of migrations there are, not merely from big firms, and we do not want to put something on the Statute Book which cannot be carried out.
§ Miss BONDFIELDIf I may be permitted to reply, I would say that I see no difficulty whatever. We have a great deal of knowledge of what goes on in the big concerns, and it is up to the shop 917 assistants themselves to see that it is administered. There ought to be no difficulty about it.
§ Amendment agreed to.