PUBLIC WORKS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLI, Issue 9543, 23 June 1921, Page 7

PUBLIC WORKS.

tm GRIEVANCES OF EMPLOYEES. SUBMITTED TO MINISTER. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 22. A deputation of the Workers' Union to-day waited on the Ministers for Public Works and Labour to lay before them grievances of men engaged m construction works t-hroughout the Dominion. The complaints mainly related to the agreement arrived at be- ' tween the union and the Department, non-provision of hutments for numbers of married men on various works and payment of lower wages on relief works. The Minister was -unable to agree j to a suggestion to allow an offioer of I the Department to accompany the union organiser over all construction works to discuss clauses of the agreement, of which the interpretation is m dispute, with the engineers m charge m order to secure uniformity of action. The Minister said that lie would with the_ Engineer-in-Chief allowing the organiser to discuss such clauses with engineers In charge to secure, if possible, uniform interpretation. As to hutments, the difficulty was scarcity of labour and timber, but the Department had done, and was doing, what it could. It would cost £20,000 to £25,000 to house the men at Mangahao alone. He claimed that Public Works employees now were m a better position than ever before. At one time Public Works employees were the first to have thenpay reduced, but he held that they should be among the last to suffer reduction. At one time the ' men on pubHo works at a period of financial stringency like this would have had their wages reduced, and all public works would have been turned into relief works, but now the wages pf the men were on a schedule. Men on publio works, railways, roads, hydroelectric schemes, irrigation, bridges and such like, had not had their wages reduced. The Government reCQgnised that these men, its construction workers, should not, until other men m outside walks of life were subject to similar inconveniences, be compelled to accept a reduction. Nor could he see any reason- why men m these works, which the Government wanted proceeded with at top speed, should have their wages or the pay on co-operative contracts, reduced. Cabinet had fixed a rate of pay for relief works. The Department simply allotted work as near as possible to the men's homes. He looked upon these as purely relief works, where men absolutely stuck could go and' earn something to go on with. He would inquire into earnings, etc., with ihe Minister for Labour. He would be only to glad to go into the various complaints mentined and see whether they could be adjusted.