State pay up 11% for tradesmen
PA Wellington Tradesmen working for the Government will get an 11 per cent pay rise under State pay awards announced yesterday. Those State employees whose rates are subject to annual adjustment will get 7 per cent. Trades and trades-related employees would get an extra 4 per cent catch-up pay to bring their rates into line with the private sector, said the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas. He warned against “the temptation to misinterpret the State trades group settlement as giving a lead of any kind to the private sector.”
The 7 per cent increase awarded State servants was designed to have no impact on the current wage round, Mr Douglas said. The general adjustment was in line with settlements in the private sector, especially since it had also to take account of a small corrective factor which had not been applied during the 1981-82 wage round. It was based on the principle that the State should follow, not lead the private sector, he said. It should be fair to both the taxpayer
and the employee, by paying what good private sector employers were paying for the same job.
Most State servants would receive the annual general adjustment, which should be paid out before the end of March, Mr Douglas said.
State pay rates for trades and related groups had moved with award rates only, and it had become increasingly apparent they had fallen behind the private sector over the last four years, Mr Douglas said. The discrepancy had been assessed through a special pay research exercise which showed that, on average, those people had fallen about 4 per cent behind the private sector. “To make any kind of precedent out of that situation for the private sector in the present wage round would be a total misinterpretation of this entirely retrospective adjustment” Mr Douglas said. A few other State pay claims still needed to be resolved, but the State unions were taking a sensible attitude to the wage round. They should be resolved without undue complications, he said.
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Press, 15 February 1985, Page 1
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344State pay up 11% for tradesmen Press, 15 February 1985, Page 1
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