State Office Pay “Threatens” Firms

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30100, 6 April 1963, Page 12

State Office Pay “Threatens” Firms

<New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 5. “With the large increase in Public Service salaries the Government has posed quite a threat to private enterprise,” said Mr D. G. Nolan, secretary of the Clerical Employees’ Association today. To compete with the attractiveness of the Government’s new salary scale, firms, particularly the larger ones, will have to increase their wages to retain their staff.

Mr Nolan said the increase by the Government was well justified because it removed the differentiation on pay based on sex. He said that employers tn the Employers’ Federation, and private employers generally, did not want equal pay to be written into the awards because while they might have to give more money to retain their best, female workers, in the meantime, a change in the employment situation would allow them to lower the rates of pay again. The director of Gilby’s College (Mr A. H. Gilby) said he presumed the increases had been approved to enable the Government to compete with private employers, as previously the scale of payment in the Public Service had been far below that of outside firms. In the past, the Government had not paid sufficient to make working for it attractive and. in Wellington where there was a shortage of good shorthand-typists, the position had been acute, be said. Mr Gilby said he did not believe that the girls were worth the pay they would be getting. The sum was far too much for the work they did.

In Wellington, the wages scale was much too high for the average shorthand-typist and only a few of the workers enjoyed the job rather than the remuneration. Mr Gilby said he presumed that by paying such high salaries the Wellington employers had forced the Government to increase the rates of pay and the workers were going to the highest bidders.