PUBLIC WORKS PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 299, 18 December 1935, Page 5

PUBLIC WORKS PAY.

STATEMENT BY MINISTER

STANDARD RATES FOR ALL.

(Ky Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NAPIER, this day.

"We want to give fair compensation for fair labour," said the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Semple, in replying to a deputation. "The question of wages will be gone into as soon as the opportunity offers, but in the meantime we are going to knock off .this starvation business, anyway. "Any form of slavery 011 public works has got to cease," lie continued. "Men have got to be treated like human beings. I have all the sympathy in the world for a battler, but I've got 110 time at all for the 'scrounger.' The mail who gets into ditches and creates assets for the nation should have rights that protect him against being taken advantage of in his misery, either now or in time to come. We want to create a Public Works system that will be a credit to the country and an example to the whole world, and it has got to be operated by a team of happy and' efficient men, who feel their jobs are a joy and not drudgery, and that they count in the scheme of things. "I ain determined to abolish relief work from Public Works, but the position "is at present so involved that it will take time to work out our schemes. However, it shall be done. It is my intentioii to pay standard rates ,of pay 011 all Public Works, and I should like to add that, if I have anything to do with it, we shall embody the principle of preference (for unionist's). They have it in all sorts of other trades and professions, and I cannot see why the workers should not have it. I do not stand for the 'quitter' in any walk of life. I believe in.organisation, so long as organisation is used for legitimate purposes."