QUESTION OF WAGES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 183, 1 May 1929, Page 3

QUESTION OF WAGES

APPRENTICES & MILITARY CAMPS Dominion Special Service. . Auckland, April 30. “The payment of wages to boys attending military camps is looked on by employers as a most unjust class taxation to which employers who are willing to train apprentices are subject. The whole cost of the training of our territorials is a charge which should in all justice be borne by the whole country, not by any particular section of the community.” This statement was made in the Arbitration Court this morning by Mr. S. E. Wright, secretary of the Employers’ Association, when supporting an application by the master plumbers to amend the apprentices’ order to entitle employers to make rateable deductions from apprentices’ wages for time lost through sickness or accident not arising out of their employment and other causes over which they have no control. “The payment of wages to apprentices while in camps is a matter which all employers look at with grave concern,” added Mr. Wright. “Under the law, as it now stands, employers not only have to lose the services of their apprentices while in camp but also are obliged to pay their wages as well. Boys are found in board, lodging and uniforms by the Government, are also paid from 4s. to ss. 6d. a day according to rank, and are therefore at no expense to themselves. This is more than many of them earn as apprentices when they have t< keep themselves. We are not asking that hny particular hardship be inflicted on apprentices by seeking the suggested amendment,” he added. In opposing the application. Mr. J. Clark, representing the Plumbers’ Union, said the order provided for deductions in excess of two weeks* absence from work. The amendment simply meant that employers were endeavouring to pay their apprentices for every hour worked only and a few holidays in the year. The Court reserved its decision.