SUBSIDISED WAGES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 259, 28 July 1932, Page 8

SUBSIDISED WAGES

Award Rates Not Paid by Householders EFFECT ON BUILDERS Since the announcement of the Unemployment Board’s scheme to encourage building activity by providing a Government subsidy on labour, doubt has risen in some quarters as to the position of private employers in relation to award wages. It is contended that while master builders are obliged to pay full award wages to the men they employ, householders who engage labour direct from the Government bureau may pay less than award wages, and, at the same time, secure the full benefit of the subOutlining the position to a “Dominion” reporter yesterday, a Wellington master builder said that the present award rate of wages for journeymen tradesmen, minus the 10 per cent, cut, was £4/11/8 a week, or 2/1 an hour for a 44-hour week. The Unemployment Board’s subsidy on wages was 6/8 in the pound, with a maximum of £l/2/6' a week for labour not exceeding £5O in costs, and £l/5/- a week for labour above £5O in cost. This meant that, whereas the householder could secure the full benefit of the one-third subsidy by agreeing to pay only £3/7/6 a week on jobs of up to £5O in wages value, the master builder was obliged to pay the full award rate of wages for the same subsidy. In other words, jobs undertaken by a master builder carried a subsidy of £l/2/6, as against a weekly wage payment of £4 11/8, or only about one quarter. In view of the fact that the private employer was free from award restrictions, the tendency on jobs of up to £5O in wages value, in the opinion of many, would be to fix the wage rate in the vicinity of £3/7/6 a week—the highest amount on which the full subsidy of one-third was paid—as a maximum. Naturally, therefore, master builders who were obliged to conform to. the provisions of the award were at a serious disadvantage when competing for small contracts. For every permanent employee they were entitled to engage four subsidised unemployed men, but the wages of these men had to total the full award rate.'