BONUS FOR RELIEF WORKERS

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21652, 10 December 1935, Page 14

BONUS FOR RELIEF WORKERS

PROBLEM FOR THE NEW MINISTER UNEMPLOYED ASK FOR LUMP DISTRIBUTION A problem which is exercising the minds of the new Minister for Employment, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, 'and of the members of the Unemployment Board is whether the additional Christmas payments to the unemployed should be made in a lump sum or handed out in smaller periodic amounts. The point was raised yesterday morning by more than cne ot the several deputations which waited on the Minister in the Christchurch City Council Chambers. Mr Armstrong told one deputation that he did not know whether it wou!d be wise to pay out in one sum and risk a repetition of what occurred on a recent Christmas in the city, when the unemployed rapidly used up the money paid them, and had to come to the council for additional assistance. The Citizens' Unemployment Committee favoured paying the money in three lots, but every part of New Zealand did not have tne organisation to handle the distribution that existed in the city. Mr Armstrong said that his own view was that while the great majority of the relief workers would be prudent in handling the money there would be a minority which would get rid of it too quickly. Assurance Given "If it is all paid out at once you will not encourage visits to the depots lor additional rations?" he asked members of a deputation from the Canterbury Unemployed Workers' Association. The deputation assured the Minister that they would not. Mr Armstrong said that no relief worker earning more than £2 10s a week would receive the additional payment, It had been decided that in the meantime the board would have to adhere to the regulation about the registration period of 13 weeks. This was necessary to prevent a rush of registrations oi' people anxious merely to register to secure the bonus. Already a lot of people had done so since the announcement of the intention of the' Government to pay the money. But the Unemployment Board would go into the suggestion that there might be a fund set up to assist relief workers who would suffer hardship because of any anomaly. Women to Participate The Minister also announced that the board had agreed that women would participate in the Christmas bonus on the same basis as the men, but the , board could deal only with those Women who were registered. The deputation asked for official recognition of the Canterbury Unemployd Workers' Movement as the only organisation representing the unemployed generally, for the representation of the central executive of the unemployed on the board, and for the recognition of workers' job delegates. Mr Armstrong told the men that he believed in organisation. He had been approached, since his appointment, by many individual relief workers, and he thought that it would be a more businesslike procedure for the men to become part of an organisation through which their requests could be placed before the board. He took it that such an organisation would first investigate the merits of cases, but in any case he hoped it would be an organisaticn with which he would be able to deal and not the individual. Higher Sustenance A request was also made for sustenance payments on the same scale as relief rates. The Minister expressed his view that sustenance rates should be on the same basis as relief. "But better still, let us work for the conditions of things in which there will be no need for sustenance or relief," he said. A deputation representing the ICaiapci unemployed asked that the allocation of funds for Kaiapoi be put on a secondary city allocation instead of rural. Mr Armstrong replied that as far as the funds would allow the allocation would be readjusted as soon as possible. "There will be little or nothing left in' the funds of the board after the distribution of the Christmas bonuses,'' he said "and it seems to me that if the board goes on at its present rate of expenditure there will be quite a substantial deficit at-the end of the financial year. We can only administer the relief according to the funds at our disposal at the present time." The Minister gave the members of the deputation an assurance that they would not lose pay for the time they spent in ccming in to the city to see feim.