PUBLIC WORKS WAGES

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22851, 26 October 1939, Page 12

PUBLIC WORKS WAGES

XO THE EBtTOB OF THE PEES* Sir, —As an employee of the Public Works Department, and a recipient of the increase of IJd an hour, may I be permitted, through your columns, tc seek the justification for raising wages, when increased taxation has been found necessary to build.up our defence pro gramme? People of New Zealand have beep asked, and are willing, to “do their bit,” realising as they do, the necessity for sacrifice in some form or other. Yet if man-power is not required at this stage of the war, surely the revenue which ostensibly has been raised in the name of defence, should be applied to that end, and not used as an incentive with which to bribe public workers to stick to their jobs. Most of us realise that by ensuring the early completion of the various schemes which will inevitably increase New Zealand’s prbduction, we are doing a good service to the country as a whole; but why should we be virtually bribed to do our duty? The much maligned public worker will, no doubt, again receive his full share of vituperation from the taxpayers of the country, on account of this rise in wages, but may I submit that we did not ask for it.—Yours, etc.. WAR-TIME ECONOMY. October 25. 1939.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS Sir, —I read your editorial with very great interest concerning the 5s added on to the public workers’ wages and the treatment given the primary producers. The reason is very obvious why farmers cannot take advantage of their would-be “kind” offer of placing farm labour. We simply cannot, as it would require all we are making to pay the wages they demand us to pay. —Yours, etc., SLATE. October 25, 1939.