BERLIN'S MAYOR WARNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 7

BERLIN'S MAYOR WARNED.

MUST REDUCE OFFICIAL PAY. UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM. The Ober-Buergermeister, or Mayor, of Berlin has received a serious warning from his superior, the Obei'-Praesident of the Province. The contribution which the State receives from the Reich towards the cost of unemployment relief will be withheld, it is declared, unless the salaries and wages of Berlin communal officials and workers are reduced to the level of those paid to persons in similar categories employed by the Reich itself.. .

The Ober-Buergermeister has been forced to comply. But he has ordered that salaries and wages shall be reduced in the last three months of this year by not more than 5 per cent, and that in the first three months of the year 1932 by not more than 7 per cent. The new order means that within a few months the Berlin communal officials and workers will have their salaries and wages reduced by between 10 and 15 per cent. The officials and workers protested a few days ago against the first reduction, and a court of arbitration is considering the matter.

I The workers had threatened to strike j if the reductions were enforced, and thev are now indignant over the pronouncement of still further reductions before the first dispute is settled. The commune of Bolkenhain, in Silesia cannot find the money with which to relieve its unemployed, so it proposes that some of the relief shall be given in kind. The farmers m the districts are unable to pay their .income and commmml taxes; so the local council suggests that they shall pay with rye instead of with money. This rye would be ground by millers, who would retain the husks for their labour, and from lewt Of the rye flour the bakers would bake 134 loaves of bread. One hundred ox these loaves would be given to the unemployed in part payment of the relief due to them, and the bakers would retain 34 loaves to compensate them.