"LOAFING" DENIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 224, 21 September 1932, Page 3

"LOAFING" DENIED.

MANUREWA RELIEF WORKERS TEN MILES' WALK DAILY. SOME UNUSED TO MANUAL WORK. An indignant denial of the allegations that they had been "loafing" on a job 011 a private property at Manurewa is given by the men concerncd. The owner of the property, Mr. Arthur Roberts, in a letter to the Manukau County Council yesterday, said it was quite evident that there was an organised movement among" a large number of men to loaf deliberately. Ho also alleged that there had been deliberate destruction of handles 011 slashers and grubbers.

"It is ridiculous to assert that there is an organised movement to loaf," said Mr. J. E. Bracewell, of Takanini, a member of the executive of the Unemployed Workers' Movement, who works on the job. "The majority of the men are giving a full day's work and 110 one can honestly accuse them of slacking. If some of the men are inclined to take frequent short spells it is because they are not suited for the work, coming fresh, to hard manual toil from a variety of skilled occupations. .1 daresay the fact that the largo percentage of the men walk five miles to the job in the morning and five miles back again at night affects somewhat the standard of the work."

Mr. Bracewell eaid his observations led him to suspect that they were not obtaining sufficient rations to maintain tlio stamina necessary for that class of work. He mentioned that there had been considerable dissatisfaction during the last two days owing to the introduction of the new relief conditions, under which they were working longer hours for the same rates of pay. That was to say, a married man with three children was receiving £2 10/ for a five-day week instead of a four-day week, as obtained previously, and every fourth week was a* stand-down week. Those conditions differed from those ill force in the metropolitan district and on many other country jobs. However, that had only happened in the last day or two, and Mr. Roberts' accusations referred, he presumed, to a more extended period, when the men were working as industriously as men worked anywhere else. "As to the alleged destruction of tools, it is very unjust of Mr. Roberts even to think of such a thing," continued Mr. Bracewell. "We have had a good many breakages, which were entirely accidental and were due to the'poor quality of the handles of the slashers. Many of these handles broke when they were used on the scrub, which is very old tough goi ,e tea-tree and kangaroo acacia, the stems averaging 2in to 2Jin thick. Ihis tiouW? would be remedied if a more suitable class of tool was supplied. To say tnc men broke them deliberately is a gro«= untruth."