FARM WORK REFUSED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 196, 1 June 1938, Page 7

FARM WORK REFUSED.

NO BAR TO SUSTENANCE.

100 MEN AFFECTED BY AUCKLAND

(Special to the “ Guardian.”)

AUCKLAND, May 31

The extension of sustenance to men who had previously boon denied financial assistance because they would not undertake farm work, and an easing of other restrictions against relief, was announced to a gathering of unemployed single men after a conference among Mr W. T. Anderton, M.P., representing the Government, Mr J. Edwards, organiser of the Unemployed Workers’ Union, and Mr A. T. Grandison, officer in charge of the Employment Branch of the Labour Department in Auckland. After the announcement a special staff was kept busy at the Labour Bureau accepting I re-registrations of men and taking applications for sustenance, i In explaining the position, Mr Anderton said that the principle that a. man offered work of a reasonable nature which, he unreasonably refused would not he entitled to sustenance was in accord with the Government’s policy to find employment for all men capable of filling a necessary and useful job. Some anomalies had crept into the situation through lack of understanding by men who had not been receiving sustenance that they were entitled to reapply for it under the regulations. Had some of the men more accurately presented, their cases to the department, it was obvious that they would have received assistance. Many men had been classed as voluntarily unemployed because they had refused farm work, but at present there was no farm work offering for skilled workers, which meant that men who had been denied assistance because of refusal to accept farm employment were now eligible for sustenance.

When the position had been explained: to the men-at a meeting this morning they appeared to be quite satisfied. There are 400 single registered unemployed men who had not applied for sustenance for various causes, or who had been refused it because they would not accept country work when offered. As a result of the announcement to-day it is expected that most of these men will now come on the sustenance funds.