DISMISSAL OF MEN

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21940, 14 November 1936, Page 12

DISMISSAL OF MEN

MORE THAN 130 RELIEF WORKERS AFFECTED county scheme not approved BY DEPARTMENT [THB PRESS Special Service.] GERALDINE, November 13. Disapproval by the Labour Department of suggested relief work in the Geraldine County will mean that 133 men, who were employed by the county under the No. 5 scheme, will be without work indefinitely. The terms stipulated by the department will also involve the Geraldine County, if it is to employ the men, in an expenditure of more than £14,000 a year for wages. Mr C. E. Bremner, engineer to the Geraldine County Council, said to-day that by the direction of the chairman of the county council he had recently submitted for favourable consideration a statement of works for which it was suggested that relief labour could be obtained. He had asked for interim authority from the labour officers in the Geraldine and Temuka districts to carry on the wofks until advice had been received from the Labour Department The suggested works, said Mr Bremner, included river-bed clearing, drainage, fencing, the erection of floodbanks, and other river protective works* A reply from the Labour Department, received to-day, said that it was regretted that the works could not be approved for the employment of labour under the No. 5 scheme. Subsidy Offered The department would be prepared, however, to offer a subsidy on the basis of 45s a man-week for married men, and 30s a man-week for single men for full-time employment of registered and eligible unemployed men, provided that they were employed at not less than 2s an hour or the award rates if higher. On these terms it would be impossible for the Geraldine County Council to employ the men, said Mr Bremner, as in the cartage estimates provision was made for the permanent men, but it would be impossible to employ the additional men under the terms stipulated by the Labour Department. At these rates it would mean that the county would have to find £1 15s a week for married men and £2 10s for single men, to bring their wages up to the amount required for the 2s an hour basis. As, roughly, two-thirds of the men employed were married men, this would mean that the county would be obliged to pay £276 a week with which to pay all the men, said Mr Bremner. If tiie men were to be employed for a year this would cost the county considerably more than £14,000. With the estimates of the county containing no provision for this expenditure, it was impossible to employ these men under the terms stipulated by the Labour Department, and it had been found necessary to dispense with their services pending other arrangements with the department. The dismissed men had been advised to apply for sustenance until other arrangements could be made.