DRIFT OF FARM LABOUR

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21863, 17 August 1936, Page 8

DRIFT OF FARM LABOUR

MINISTER’S ACTION NO OPENINGS ON PUBLIC WORKS INSTRUCTION TO ENGINEERS The Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) has already taken steps to prevent any drift of farm labour to undertakings carried on by the Public" Works Department, where the pay and the conditions of work are more attractive. The Minister has on several occasions promised that action would be taken to ensure that men would not leave their employment on farms and in industry generally for jobs on public works, and when he was questioned on his arrival in Christchurch on Saturday about his proposals to achieve his object, he <*aid that all the district engineers of the department throughout the country bad received definite instructions to employ only those men who were legitimately unemployed. It has been stated that competition between the Public Works Department in the market from which farm labour is drawn is looked on with grave concern by farmers, whoconsider that the high wages- of 16s a day offered by the department will take the best men away from farms; but Mr Semple gave a definite assurance that there was no cause for farmers to be alarmed. “I have given definite instructions to my engineers throughout the country that they are not to take any men on to public works unless they are legitimately unemployed and are physically fit,” he said. “It Is not fair that those men who have been legitimately out of work should have their prospects of jobs spoiled by others who leave their jobs for better pay. It is not fair to the farmer that his employees should leave him, and it is not fair to the men for whom the public works have been started.”