WAGE RESTORATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 289, 7 December 1933, Page 20

WAGE RESTORATION.

WELLINGTON COUNCIL

HIGH EXCHANGE THE OBSTACLE. The Wellington City Council, by a majority of one vote, on Monday night approved a recommendation that steps should be taken at the beginning of the next financial year towards the restoration of cuts in wages and salaries in the council service. This closely follows the decision of the Auckland City Council.

The Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, stated that the estimates committee had considered the financial position at the end of the half-year, and had come to the conclusion that nothing further could be done at present towards the restoration of cuts, but recommended that the matter should be again considered when finances permitted.

This report was not accepted by some councillors, who contended that the council's estimates were ultra-conservative, and also that there was a movement among the biggest local bodies of the Dominion to restore wages.

The Mayor said it was just as well that councillors should remember that revenue had fallen 33 1-3 per cent. If the reductions had not been made more men would have been discharged. There was no money to pay more wages than were then paid. Auckland had not increased its salaries. Christchurch had not anything like Wellington's burden of overseas indebtedness, and the heavy exchanges Wellington had to meet in connection with it. That was also true of Dunedin, but perhaps not so of Auckland. The yearly exchange cost to Wellington City Council was £25,000.

Mr. P. Fraser, M.P., said he trusted that council employees and citizens generally would take note of the fact that but for the Government's' high exchange policy, requiring the payment of an additional £25,000 per annum, the cuts could be restored to the workers. "In other words, this is the amount which the Government has taken from the workers and has handed to people who are better off," said Mr. Fraser.

Mr. K. McKeen, M.P., moved as an amendment to the adoption of the committee's report that it should be a recommendation to the council that the cuts ehould be restored at the commencement of the financial year in April next.

The amendment was adopted by one vote.

The result was heartily applauded by Mr. M. F. Luckie, but the Mayor remarked: "We shall see how many men we shall have to dismiss, to gee how it will be done."

Mr. Fraser: Leave it to the majority of the council; we will see that not one man is dismissed.