UNEMPLOYED RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 182, 3 August 1932, Page 15

UNEMPLOYED RELIEF.

WORK ON WATERFRONT.

HARBOUR BOARD'S EFFORTS,

WESTERN RECLAMATION,

Efforts made by the Auckland Harbour 'Board to keep its workmen in employment and to find work for relief labour were outlined by the board's engineer, Mr. Drummond Holderness, at yesterday's meeting. "The public should know that we are doing our ehare in an endeavour to find work for waterside (workers who are unable, to make a living on tlie wharves .at the present time," commented the chairman, Mr. G. R. Hutchinson.

As far as practicable, reported Mr. Holderness, the board had assisted the unemployment situation by completing works already in hand out of its own funds, thereby retaining men who otherwise would have ewelled the ranks of the unemployed. When the Unemployment Board had experienced difficulty in making provision for the large number of waterside workers who, through slackness of shipping, were no longer able to earn a living wage on the wharves, the board had inaugurated relief work at St. Mary's Bay. That, until recently, had absorbed the whole of the men entitled to relief.

With the St. Mary's Bay boat harbour nearing completion and the situation showing no signs of improvement, the board, at the urgent request of the Unemployment Board, had decided to carry out the roading of the western reclamation as a relief work, and all unemployed waterside workers had been transferred to that job.

The relief work at St. Mary's Bay had been started on August 13 of last year, and a daily average of 30 men had been employed. At no time, from the date the work was commenced, had any member of the Waterside Workers' Union failed to obtain the full amount of relief employment to which he was entitled. Over £3600 of relief moneys had been distributed to unemployment relief workers, and the board had already epent over £2200 of its own funds in the prosecution of tuo Curran Street extension, a work which had been postponed indefinitely, and one from which no return could bo expected until" the additional facilities required at the St. Mary's Bay boat harbour were provided. In that connection it should bo noted that all the materials supplied on tho Curran Street work wore of local production, and represented almost entirely further relief by retaining men in employment in the various industries concerned.

In connection with the western reclamation roading, it was anticipated that a similar amount of unemployed labour would be absorbed, while the amount of money to be provided by the board for materials and other items would bo approximately £8000. Relief works had been so organised that it was possible at short notice to absorb a large number of men, and the Labour Department had been advised from time to time that any reasonable emergency could be met in the way of placing additional men on the works. "I anticipate no difficulty in meeting the situation" throughcfut'l'thc next five or six months," concluded Mr. Holderness. ■■■