LABOURERS PROTEST

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 148, 19 March 1931, Page 11

LABOURERS PROTEST

Relief Subsidy Challenged NATIONAL MUSEUM WORK In a statement yesterday morning. Air P. M. Butler, secretary of the General Labourers’ Union, said that the Work at present being done at the campanile site in Buckle Street, under the Unemployment Board’s No 5 scheme, was an open and flagrant breach of the general labourers’ award. Air. Butler said that, in his opinion, if the Unemployment Board paid any money in subsidy to this work it would be highly improper, as the job could not be classed under the No. l> scheme. , , ~ . He added that as far as he could understand, an agreement had been made between the contractor and the trustees of the National Art Gallery, and consequently the supervision of the excavation work had been handed over to the City Council. This done, the City Council placed relief workers on the job at 14/per day (two days single men, three and four days married men), and applied for the Unemployment Board’s Thus the trustees of the National Art Gallery were having the work done free of cost, and the workers were deprived of a portion of their proper earnings. Air. Butler considered that the City Council entered into the matter in' order that it, as a local body, could quality for the subsidy, but as the City Council had no direct interest in the work, which was being supervised by a clerk of works appointed by the trustees and by the architects. the action ot the City Council was misleading to the Unemployment Board, and consequently tbo subsidy should not be paid Tbe General Labourers’ Lmou had taken the matter up with the Local Unemployment Committee, said Mr. Butler. He had personally interviewed tb i Alinister of Labour (Hon. S. G. Smith), with the result that an extra penny per hour was being paid to tbe workers by the board of trustees of the National Art Gallery, and this constituted the only wages paid by that body. All other conditions of the award were being disregarded. . , x. • • 1 Air. Butler said that had the original contract between the board of trustees and the builders, not been interfered with the men would have been employed in the ordinary way, and no injustice done. As it was at present, all kinds of men were employed, including tradesmen at 14/-, and genuine members of the Labourers Union were unemployed.