THE EXERTION WAGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14507, 26 April 1909, Page 6

THE EXERTION WAGE.

TRADES COUNCIL TAKEN TO TASK. (Faou Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHUKCH, April 24. Some of the Labour organisations, reports tho Lyttelton Times, seem bent on trying the patience of tho public. There ,is plenty of legitimate work for the trades and labour councils to do, and we dare say they tiy to do it according to their lights, but they quite fail to realise the value of tact and moderation. There will not, we think, be anv very widespread sympathy with the "Wellington Trades and Labour Council in its protest, against the payment of an "exertion wage" to the workers in the Otira tunnel. The payment seems to have been justified by tho results, The contractors believed that they were not obtaining a full measure of work from the hands, and in order to stimulate them to special activity they offered an extra payment over and above the wage fixed by the Arbitration Court to be paid for all work in excess of a stated standard. The contractors, it must be remembered!, are working on a. tinrie limit, and it is reasonable to assumo that they have no yeiy considerable margin of profit in sight-. Moreover, in the claes of work in which thev are engaged it would be impossible to tell if the men were deliberately going slow. In tho circumstances they are certainly justified in otiering inducements to the men to exert themselves. We believe that the principle of the exertion wago is capable of a much wider application, with id vantage to industry generally, and in tlvis ca<so at any rate there is no room for a. difference of opinion as to the wisdom of the payment. Apparently the Wellington agitators desire to fee the minimum wage operating also as a maximum wage. We are trying to take the protest- seriously, but it would be easy to describe it as ridiculous.