CUTS AND PRICES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 23

CUTS AND PRICES.

In spite of the "cuts" all round, none of the workers seems to have benefited No lower rents, rates, or charges for gas and electricity. No reduction in transport. In fact, the only change of any kind in the public service has been • the increased postal and telegraph rates. Apparently the original idea of the suggested "cuts" was to benefit the unemployed, but so far from doing this, it has merely served as an excuse—in many eases—foi\ employers to further reduce wages. This, of course, is quite apart from the wages of union workers, who have automatically received increases from year to year, whether the firms could afford it or not. But there are other cases where there have been no such increases, yet the staffs must now take lower wages for doing work which is absolutely indispensable, I know of one case, where, as-a result of making a 25 per cent cut, the manager has been able to afford an extended' holiday;' of another, where £300 saved, in "cuts" has been expended on a large sign (not much good to the unemployed that); of yet'another where, by sacrificing the wages of already underpaid juniors, a young and inefficient manager has been installed'at a salary far beyond his wotth. In one of these cases the low wage of £1 per week which the girls received—and every penny of which they earned—has been reduced to If?/ per week, a great hardship where the family needed every shilling. A WOMAN WORKER.