RELIEF WORKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 257, 31 October 1933, Page 8

RELIEF WORKERS.

DISABLEMENT CASES. HIGHER COMPENSATION. NEW RATES TO OPERATE. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. While it is likely that relief workers who suffer temporary or permanent disablement as a result of injuries sustained while on Unemployment Board work, will, in the near future, receive a higher rate of compensation than has been the case in the past. There is no need for an amendment to the Workers' Compensation Act to ensure this result. The Unemployment Board carries its own insurance on relief workers, and can thus make whatever arrangements it likes for the payment of compensation, provided, of course, that these payments are not below those prescribed in the Workers' Compensation Act. In the past compensation to relief workere has been on the basis laid down in the Act, as the result of which they have been limited to obtaining not more than two-thirds of the amount they have earned on relief work. The board has been reviewing for some time the question of granting higher rates of compensation to relief workers, and it is understood that it has now reached a new basis, especially for men who arc permanently disabled while on relief work. The new rates will shortly be brought into operation, and their effect will be to put a man who is permanently disabled on a basis approaching flhat of a man who is injured while in full-time employment.