FOR SINGLE WORKERS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 167, 11 April 1932, Page 5

FOR SINGLE WORKERS

Camp Scheme is Launched APPEAL TO GOOD SENSE It has been decided by the Unemployment Board that 500 registered single men at Wellington now receiving two days’ relief work a week at 9/. a day must within the next month enter country camps for land development schemes. It is hoped that from 750 to 1000 men will be in camp within two months. Those who refuse and who cannot furnish a medical certificate of unfitness will cease to be employed under the No. 5 scheme, it is believed that more than 200 men in Wellington who have refused to go to camp have not been reinstated on relief works.

The board has informed the Labour Department that a camp is already ready at Waimiha, 45 miles north of Taumaranui. On Friday last single men on one large city job were interviewed as to whether they would accept transfer from the No. 5 scheme to the camp, as 45 were required to leave that evening. Some of the men accepted, but others declined and protested against the camp scheme. Declaration forms are being provided for those who wish exemption from the camp scheme on the ground that they have dependants to look after. Persuaded to Hang Back.

In the meantime Messrs. J. I. Goldsmith, chairman of the Citizens' Unemployment Committee, and I’. Kinsman, certifying officer for the Labour Department, approached the Salvation Army and the Central Mission, notifying them that there were vacancies for single men in the camp at Waimiha. A number of men were prepared to go forward, but they were persuaded to attend meetings of protest.

Mr. Goldsmith was asked to allow a deputation to interview the Unemployment Committee, and on Friday told, the men that a meeting was to be held on Saturday morning. On Saturday morning about 2000 men assembled outside the Labour Department’s offices in Ghuznee Street, where the committee meets, and were told by Mr. Goldsmith that the committee intended to wait upon the Unemployment Board, when the result would be made known. Subsequently the committee waited upon the board seeking information of a definite character about the camp scheme, and were informed that every registered unemployed single man was affected-by the scheme. Work Becoming. Exhausted. Later Mr. Goldsmith addressed a large crowd of men who were being paid at the Corporation Yards in Clyde Quay and explained that the works for unemployed labour in Wellington were becoming exhausted, as also was the money with which to keep them going. It was Impossible to carry on along the same lines as before. The number of men had to be reduced, and first consideration had to be given to married men with wives and children. In these circumstances, said Mr. Goldsmith, an alternative had to be found for the single men, and that alternative was the camp scheme, by which it was hoped to provide work for the single men all over the country. The various local committees had been directed to send men to these camps, and arrangements were being made to send 500 within .the next month and between 250 and 500 during the month following. Mr. Goldsmith made it clear that any flat refusal to go into these camps meant that the man would be at once struck off the register of the No. 5 scheme. The decision of the board was final, and the local committee could do nothing in the matter. Payment for Time Lost. Single men had merely to sign a document that they would go into camp, and those men who were taken off jobs on Thursday and Friday would be paid for time lost if they advised that they were prepared to go into camp when called upon. Mr. Goldsmith said he had been assured that the camps would be conducted on a proper footing, and he promised that reasonable complaints would be placed before the board. He pointed out that when the Akatarawa camp was being formed it was difficult to get men into it. but now it was hard to persuade men to leave.