DAIRY PRICES AND WAGES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21746, 31 March 1936, Page 12

DAIRY PRICES AND WAGES

GOVERNMENT'S SCHEME

MINISTERS’ LETTERS TO FARMERS’ UNION [THE PRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND. March 30. A further insight into the Government’s scheme to provide dairy farmers with a guaranteed price for their produce, and also to deal with the wages and conditions of farm workers, is supplied in letters which have been received by Mr A. E. Robinson, provincial secretary of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. The union recently forwarded to the Hon. W. Lee Martin, Minister for Agriculture, and the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. Minister for Labour, the opinion of the union’s executive about farm labour and conditions in relation to the proposed guaranteed price for butter-fat and other farm products, and replies from the Ministers have now been received. In his letter to the Farmers’ Union, the Minister for Agriculture writes as follows: “I fully concur that farm workers’ wages and conditions are ruling in other industries; but dairy farmers have been handicapped in that the wages they have been able to oay have not been sufficient to guarantee an adequate supply of competent labour. As you are aware, the Government in its pre-election pledges undertook to nay a guaranteed price for butter-fat as for* the 1936-37 season, the price guaranteed being the average for the last eight or 10 years. The adoption of an arbitrary method was essential for the first season; but subsequent adjustments are to be made following a full investigation into the industry. The Minister for Labour has recently conferred with the central executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union on the matter of dairy farm labour, and a tentative agreement has been reached whereby a sliding scale of wages is to be adopted, the scale being related to the average price guaranteed for butter-fat.” The Minister for Labour, in his letter, writes: “Concerning the wages and conditions of farm workers, and their relation to produce prices, I have to inform you that in the discussions between the Government and a committee appointed by the New Zealand Farmers Union, a scheme embodying scales of wages and certain conditions for dairy farm workers, with provision for periodic variation according to a mutually accepted. formula, has been agreed upon. In the discussions, the special problems and difficulties of dairy farmers were fully explained by the Farmers’ Union committee, and received careful consideration.”