Growers pressed to match dole

Press, 20 June 1984, Page 9

Growers pressed to match dole

Inexperienced, casual staff in market gardens were being tempted to claim the unemployment benefit rather than work, the annual conference of the Vegetable and Produce Growers’ Federation was told yesterday. Canterbury delegates said that because the award wage for some workers was little higher than the dole, growers were having to compete with the benefit for labour.

Mr Max Lilley said that young workers often worked for one week and then went back on the dole when they realised what they were being paid. The red tape involved in going off the dole for casual employment and then claiming the benefit again when the work had ended also put people off working, said Mr Lilley.

The six-week stand-down people faced before being eligible for the benefit meant that casual workers had a time of no income when their jobs finished. Under the market gardeners’ award, a casual worker under 16 was paid $1.66 an hour, a person aged 16 was paid $1.94, and a worker aged 19 was paid $3.15. The figures did not take into account the $8 a week cost-of-living adjustment.

Mr Lilley proposed a remit calling on the Social Welfare Department to alter regulations on dole payments to stop them competing with award wages.

He suggested “manpower committees” be created to help place people in jobs. People on the dole could be directed to jobs, such as casual work in market gar-

dens, without having to deregister as unemployed. They would be paid award wages, then go immediately back on to the dole when the job finished. The remit was lost. Several delegates thought the answer was to reduce the level of unemployment benefit or increase award wages. An amendment to the remit calling on the Social Welfare Department to require all able-bodied people on benefits to do some form of work before they could collect the benefit was also lost. Some delegates said they were ashamed to be associated with an industry that had allowed its award wages to drop almost to the level of the dole. They said the wages should be increased.