CLAIM FOR MORE WAGES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25734, 21 February 1949, Page 6

CLAIM FOR MORE WAGES

LEFTWING WIN IN CAUCUS UNIONS MAY ASK FOR £2 A WEEK (By Our Parliamentary Reporter.) The amendments to the Stabilisation Emergency Regulations, expected today, to give wage-earners the right to apply for a bigger share of the “national dividend,” will cause jubilation among the left-wingers in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

It is probable that the increase to be applied for will be £2 a week. Is an hour on a 40-hour week, which is the figure suggested in a recent circular issued by some of the militant unions, with the active backing of the national executive of the Public Service Association.

It seems that the more conservative section of the Labour Party, including the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) and the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) have been overruled in caucus by the group that supports the militant unions. The Left Wing’s usual spokesman, Mr G. H. O. Wilson (Government, Palmerston North) said in his Budget speech last August that wages had not increased to the same extent as had other sections of the national income.

Mr Wilson said some of the figures in the Budget were very disturbing and “did not show great credit to the Labour Government.” In 193940, he said, earners of salaries and wages received just over half the national income—sl per cent. In 194748 they received between 45 and 46 per cent.

Professional occupations, commerce, trade, farming and business received 2 per cent, more for their share of the national income than they had before the war, and company income was J per cent. more. “We can look forward to the workers getting not a lesser but a greater share of the national income,” Mr Wilson said. Federation of Labour’s Claim

As long ago as February, 1947, the Federation of Labour instructed its executive to request that the Economic Stabilisation Regulations should be amended to enable it to proceed for a general order increasing wages for an amount to be decided upon. Proposed amendments were submitted to the Government in December, 1947.

During the hearing of the last application for a standard wage pronouncement in August, 1947, Mr Justice Tyndall said that the federation had contended on several occasions that the workers as a class were entitled to a larger share of the “national dividend.” “We would point out,” continued his Honour in his memorandum, “that the powers of the Court under the Stabilisation Regulations appear to be designed to ensure the preservation of a proper relationship between the respective shares of the national dividend enjoyed by different sections of the workers, rather than between the share of the workers as a class and the share of other sections of the community.” The militant unions contended that the power of the Court in this respect should be widened.