WAGES OF FARM WORKERS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22726, 2 June 1939, Page 12

WAGES OF FARM WORKERS

* RELATION TO PUBLIC WORKS DISCUSSION AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE “I think it would be bad if it got about (hat the Farmers’ Union was advocating lowering wages, especially with this by-election coining on,” said Mr Forbes O’Rorke, speaking to a remit before the annual conference of thfe North Canterbury district of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union last evening. ‘‘They will be saying,” Mr O’Rorke continued, ‘‘that the farmers, and of course the old Tory Party, are advocating tower wages and are starting on public works.” The remit, which was forwarded by the Waimairi branch, was: “That the wages on public works be fixed at the same level as the wages of farm labourers.” Mr O’Rorke claimed that instead of reducing the wages for men on public works it should be urged that farm labourers’ wages be increaesd to the level of those paid to public works men. Farmers, as a whole, he said, did not consider the wages of farm labourers were too high. He then moved that it be urged that subsidies be paid on wages to fdrm workers to bring the wages into line with those paid to men on public works. Mr A. M. Carpenter said that farming was a vital industry, and the men engaged in it wore entitled to wages of at least the standard of those paid to men on public works, Farmers wanted to bo able to tell young men that there was a future on the land and not a dead end. The president (Mr I. L. M. Coop) and Mr J. W. D. Hall opposed the section in the amendment suggesting subsidies for the wages of farm workers. Mr O’Rorko explained that he favoured subsidies only as a method of pultinv the farm wages on a competitive basis. A second amendment, that the farming industry should be placed in such a position as to be able to pay competitive rates of wages, was carried.