Wages of Local Body Employees

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21465, 6 May 1935, Page 10

Wages of Local Body Employees

In the municipal election campaign much has been made by Labour speakers of the fact that the Citizens' Association candidate for the mayoralty, Sir Hugh Aclancl, voted for a reduction in the salaries of Hospital Board employees at a time when all public servants and practically all local government employees were being subjected to " cuts." On the strength of this it is being alleged that the Citizens' Association candidates Tor the Christchurch City Council stand for' a policy of low wages. Sir Hugh Ac!and has adequately defended his actions as a member of the Hospital Board and lias rightly objected to the Labour party's attempt to enlist sympathy for one section of the board's employees—the nurses. With this aspect of the question we are not for the moment concerned, though it seems worth remarking that Mr J. K. Archer's advice to the nurses, in a letter printed this morning, to keep out of politics, comes very curiously from one who has done his best to drag them into politics. What does concern us is Die Labour party's charge that the Citizens' Association is working for a general reduction of wage standards. In order to clear their minds on this point electors would do well to study carefully Sir Hugh Acland's opening address at the Radiant Hall. They will discover from it that the wages of the Christchurch City Council's employees are governed by agreements which have a currency of approximately three years and that the Citizens' Association candidates have specifically pledged themselves to respect these agreements Further than that. Sir Hugh Acland has expressed the belief that wages in industry should be as high as is possible without exercising a limiting effect on production, and that, as far as concerns wage rates, hours of work, and conditions of work, local bodies should strive to be model employers. But he has emphasised that local bodies ought not to create, at the expense of the ratepayers, a privileged class of employees enjoying substantially higher wage rates than obtain m industry generally for the same class of work. That is the policy of the Citizens' Association and it is the policy on which its candidates are entitled to be judged.