MEN PAID OFF BY WORKS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 19 September 1959, Page 11

MEN PAID OFF BY WORKS

Council’s Attitude To Employment (New Zealand Press Association) WHANGAREI, September 17. It is not a local authority’s responsibility to employ men out of work in the off-season of a freezing works. This is the view of the Bay of Islands County Council which heard a request to find employment for 25 men who are expected to be discharged from the Moerewa works in the next fortnight. A month ago the Labour Department asked the council to employ six freezing workers and offered to subsidise their wages by £6 14s 6d a week, the council finding the remaining £4 13s. Work was found for these men by the county engineer (Mr N. R. Sanderson).

But on Tuesday last, the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union telephoned that it expected 25 men to be put off in the next fortnight and that the Minister of Labour (Mr Hackett) had advised that arrangements had been made for the county council to engage any unemployed freezing workers on a similar basis. The county clerk (Mr J. L. Rayner) said the freezing company’s manager at Moerewa had told him the works would not be re-engaging men till the second or third week in November.

Mr Sanderson told yesterday’s meeting that no major construction works could be put in hand immediately—largely because of finance. After the council had discussed the respective burdens on the social security funds and on the council, the matter was left to the discretion of the county clerk and the engineer.