RELIEF MEN STRIKE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 74, 9 January 1936, Page 6

RELIEF MEN STRIKE.

DISSATISFIED WITH WAGE BASIS. MINISTER’S OFFER REJECTED. (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 8. The men in the Ashley River relief works camp have not yet agreed to work on the terms offered. More than 200 men in the two camps are involved. The conditions under which they are employed are the usual co-operative piece-work rates, and for the department it is claimed that any reasonably industrious man can earn at the rates which are offered, 12s a day, and that many good men would earn considerably more. The Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) to-day, 'through the engineer in charge, offered increases in certain of the rates amounting to from 10 to 15 per cent. This offer the men refused to accept. The spokesmen lor the men have stated that they desire their work to be treated as ordinary public works, with payment at a flat daily rate. They claim that the standard rate on public works is not 12s, which they are expected to earn, but 13s lOd a day. At a meetiing of unemployed workers in Christchurch to-night the dispute was discussed, and a resolution was carried declaring opposition to “piecework, task work, and co-operative contract work,” and support of the Government in its declared policy of establishing a minimum living wage and minimum relief payments of a. similar amount to apply in all departments. A motion suggesting a demand for 15s a day l , with other concessions, was defeated. MEN TO RESUME WORK. SHARP REBUKE BY MINISTERS. CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. The men engaged on the Ashley River protective works decided unanimously to return to work on conditions which they had previously rejected, after they had been addressed this morning by the Hon. R. Semple (Minister of Public Works) and the Hon. P. C. Webb (Minister of Mines). A serious view of the dispute was taken by the Government, which regarded the action of tho men as a challenge to its administration before it had had sufficient time to formulate a new public works policy. The emphatic declaration was made by Mr Semple and Mi Webb that (lie .Communist organisation • was the avowed enemy of tho workers and the nation, and that white - anting on public works jobs would not be tolerated in any shape or form. STATEMENT BY MINISTER. WELLINGTON, This Day. The Hon. H. T. Armstrong (Minister of Employment) stated to-day in regard to tho dispute at the Public Works camp at Ashley that the Public Works Department was chiefly concerned, but the Unemployment Board was also involved to tho extent that it had to find the money to pay the wages. The Hon. R. ISemple had left for Christchurch to take the matter up with tho men, of whom there were about 202, and in view of the fact that the matter was in,the hands of the Minister chiefly concerned, it was not his intention to take an active part in I things at present,