BASIC WAGE DISPUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 182, 3 August 1932, Page 9

BASIC WAGE DISPUTE.

CLAIM FOR "BASIC BEER."

WHAT ARE "NECESSARIES"?

JUDGES HEARING. EVIDENCE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, July 29.

The investigation of the basic wage is progressing slowly but surely under the scrutiny of three judges, who are evidently all very much alive to the importance of their task. Briefly, the employers for the most part want to see the basic wage reduced, and the workers' representatives demand that it-shall be raised, and both sides are producing great masses of evidence in .support of their contentions.

The spokesmen for the workers are inclined to regard all previous esti-, mates of basic wages, purchasing power and cost of living as erroneous, but the judges are not at all disposed to "scrap" all past records and start over again. Some of the discussions have been quite technical, and the experts have made great play with "modammain," which is not a foreign expletive or a synthetic drug, but a wage ecale, deriving its name from .a combination' of the words, '"modern adult male maintenance." It has been described as "a scale of the relative general maintenance requirelnens of families of various sizes at a given standard of living." But most people refuse to be interested in it, and have found some consolation for the monotony of the proceedings in the occasional flashes of judicial humour and the interesting variety of claims advanced on behalf 0/ various classes of wage-earners.

Curiously enough, <lhc most complicated and ingenious schedule of requirements, to form the of the living wage, was nut forward, not by the ordinary workers' representative, but by the spokesman of the Federated Clerks Union. He had ready long comparative lists setting out the claims of married men and women, boy and girl stenographers and factory girls. Fox tlic

women lie required the services of "laundry help" once in two weeks; and this table also included, as necessaries, bathrobe, kimono and aprons, with special allowance for "confectionery and gifts." For the girls the cost of "gymnasium bloomers" and "Christmas toys" is included, with kimonoe of silk or Japanese crepe.

Three Pints a Week. Refreshments are put down to the extent of "three pints of beer a week" for the men, but not, as one of the judges regretfully pointed out, for the girl stenographers. The judges were evidently rather mystified by some of the details —cold cream, powder, manicure accessories and lingerie; but they fastened, on the "three pints of beer" as something tangible and real. The claim for "basic beer," as it is now affectionately termed, was also urged by the spokesman of the Municipal Employees' Union, who apparently desired to di - cues the possible increase in drunkenness, but was cheeked by one of the judges, who informed him, with becoming gravity, that he need not be anxioue about the effects of three pints a week.

But the judges were even more interested in the suggestion that, having regard to the claime of women, it would be well for two ladies to be appointed assessors to. sit on the Bench. The president, the oldest and gravest of the three judges, asked plaintively, "Why not make it three assessors? Give 'is one each." But Mr. Williams, for the Federated Clerks, was quite, equal to the occasion. "I would not have thought that your Honor would want one," was his answer, and the Court collapsed in laughter.

Clothes-pressing Needs. But Mr. Williams was quite indefatigable in urging the right of hid clients to enjoy the minor amenities of social life —for instsance "five cleanings and pressings of suits and overcoats and "10 pressings of trousers" per year. The president of the commission wanted to know why a man could not press his own trousers, or get his wife to he p him and whether, if the industry could not'afford to pay for the extra expense, it must dose down. But Mr William* was inflexible in the matter of clothcvspressing, and so too was the delegate who wanted to make sure that there would be an allowance for women ior swimming costumes.

One of the demands urged most ener. getically and persietently on behalf of the workers was the claim for an allowance for radios, both, installation and maintenance. The spokesman told, the Court that people must be ainueed, that this is a progressive age, and that a radio might flirly be regarded as a natural and necessary ingredient in a comfortable and happy civilised life. Even Mr. Lamaro, ex-Attorney-General, though he would not eay that a radio is "necessary," contended that eome sort of amusement is absolutely indiepensable, and that definite allowance should be made for it in the wage-scale. But Mr. O'Mara, of- the Union Secretaries' Association, boldly declared that the worker "should ."have a radio," and left the three judges to digest the information at their leisure.

Judges' Comments. Of course, this eort of thing is calculated to make eome men feel cynical and one of the commissioners was a little acrimonious later on when he was discussing the need for "domestic assistance." Hβ pointed out that, in regard to the work that.a wife must do, to keep the house clean and "in going order" for herself and her husband and one child — the theoretical basis of the living wage —"many women do this and go out for the whole afternoon." But for the most part their Honors were inclined to take rather a humorous view of some of the claims. Occasionally they remonstrated with the witnesses'—as when a fluent young "economist" read extracts rapidly fro7ii a large number of authorities, and one of the judges remarked wearily that "in some respects it sounded like a treatise on relativity." When another advocate was enlarging- eloquently on the merits of lilgh wages, the president observed casually that he "knew of no line of thought where people are so completely hypnotised with words as economics. ,.

And when Mr. Lamaro began to«talk about the possible advent of a "new religion" under which "none must work for "f our weeks in the year, but they must bo fed, clothed, and amused," one of the iudgee looked up absently and asked "When is it going td start?" Yos, on the whole the Wages Commission, with its "basic beer" and other minor alleviations, has provided quite a refreshing interlude, during the past week in Sydney's rather depressed political and economic life. .