UNIVERSAL WAGE RESTORATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 6

UNIVERSAL WAGE RESTORATION.

The importance of the precedent which the Government is creating by its wage restoration legislation should not be overlooked. Never before in this country has a Government attempted to fix the minimum remuneration of every wage-earner. In 1931 the general order of the Arbitration Court reducing wages by 10 per cent applied only to those workers subject to the Court's awards and industrial agreements. The salaries and allowances of civil servants were reduced by virtue of a clause in a Finance Bill. But in the case of the majority of wage-earners reductions were subject to the decision of individual employers. Some had reduced wages before the date of the general order, a few did not impose any "cut," and the "cuts" imposed by others varied in rate and incidence. Now, more than five years later, % the Government is ordering a universal restoration of wages to the rates ruling at March 31, 1931. Difficulties and anomalies consequent upon this so simple Act will be numerous and serious, but the Government will not have to solve them. Considering that it has already passed an Act requiring the Arbitration Court to fix a basic wage, and impelling all wageearners to join a union of some kind, which unions ,will- in due course apply to the Court for an award, the Government would have been better advked to refrain from further interference. The Court at least considers the circumstances of individual industries; the Bill shortly to be passed does not.