WHAT IT HAS COST.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 279, 22 November 1913, Page 5

WHAT IT HAS COST.

loss TO AUCKLAND strikers. ' £46.650 IX WAGES TO date, what FIGURES indicate. "Money talk?" i.- a phrase of popular usage. The money lost to the workers involved during the general strike in Auckland already reaches a stupendous total, and the figures given in tabulated form below, certainly speak for themselves. The union, showing the biggest loss in wages is that of the waterside ■worker?. The thousand men in this union have been out since October 29th. and in twenty-four days have lost 10,500. All the figures {liven in a compilation of this kind have necessarily to I be more or less approximate, but the fact ' that before the strike the t'moti Com- ■ pany on an average paid L' 1200 per week Ito -100 men. indicate- hut the earnings lof the average waterside worker on the Auckland wharves may be taken at about £3. Some men in some weeks average as high as .'».). but then' are slack weeks to he taken into consideraj tion too. when it comes to a question of I figuring out a general average. Next on j the list comes the Hunth Miners' Union. I Here the pay sheets show clearly what, the loss in wages amounts to. The fortnightly payments at Huntly total .£3600. A few men are still at work, and receive £200 per week between them. In the five weeks that the 500 Huntly miners have been on strike, however, they have lost £1000 a week in pay, a total of £8000 for the strike period. At the Northern Coal Company's mines the 150 men on strike have lost £1200, and the 70 Htkurangi men £000. The general labourers may he reckoned to I average 9/ per day. and this loss, at a I rough estimate, may be put down at | 3000. The position in regard to the carpenters is difficult to estimate, for. while j the union has a membership of 800. there | has been no certain information as to just how many ceased work a fortnight ' »£o to-day. it is fairly certain, however, that'for the first week or ten days very few of the men were at work with the'exception of the Exhibition builders, and £3.500 may he fairly assumed to I re.prese.nt their loss up to the time of j resuming work on Thursday. The tram- : wayracn are not actually on strike, 'lint I their unemployment is a direct result lot" the industrial upheaval, and a. fort- ! night's hiss of pay represents to 700 of | them a. shortage of over £2.000. The timber workers, totalling about 800. were out for a fortnight, all but a day. and although between 500 ami 600 of that number are now back at work, I their experience has cost them £2.400 jin loss of pay. The carters, totalling | 500. have been losing on an average £2 ! 17/6 per week, per man. The loss to the ! hotel and restaurant workers is difficult ~to estimate: for some of the strikers i were not out for more than a day or I two. Mr. Palmer, of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, however, estimates that the loss in wage- may be given it an average of £30 per week in the 70 hotels affected. In the ca.se of the seamen it i- also difficult to arrive at a definite statement, but the ten Union Company'- steamers laid up in the Auckland harbour would, had their crews not been paid off. have been paying out £1.000 per week. TV Navua alone, with a crew of fifty or sixty, pays out. ordinarily. £600 per month. Her crew. of course, was paid oft" with the others tome daw ago. The Harbour Board staff is iainus 293 of its men. and the loss in actual wages is 1.600. The City Council is also about 170 men short, and the •pay sheet shows a shrinkage of about £1.000. Altogether, with other smaller unions involved, and mentioned below, the strike has cost the workers of Auckland, to date, in actual loss of wages alone, over £46.000. The loss, indirectly, is. of course, incalculable. Details are its follows:Waterside workers • £10,500 •Huntlv miners - X.OOO Carpenters - 3.300 Seamen ami -firemen 3.000 General labourers \- 3.000 Carters 2.800 ■Hotel and restaurant workers..- 2.500 Timber workers --- 2.400 Tramwaytnen •. >- . 2,000 "Furniture workers •- 1.500 Northern coal miners ■ 1,200 Pointers UHarbour Board employees 1.000 City Council employees '1.000 Bricklayers 050 Engine-drivers $00 Hikurangi miners t>CO I Total £46,(>50