INCREASE LIKELY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 32, 1 November 1933, Page 8

INCREASE LIKELY

Compensation Payments MEN ON RELIEF WORKS The Unemployment Board has been reviewing for some time the question of granting higher rates of compensation to relief workers, and it is understood that it has now reached a new basis, especially for men who are permanently disabled while on relief work. The new rates will shortly be brought into operation,, and their effect will be to put a man who is permanently disabled on a basis approaching that of a man who is injured while in full-time employment. While it is likely that relief workers who suffer temporary or permanent disablement as the result of injuries sustained while on Unemployment Board work will, in the near future, receive a higher rate of compensation than has been the case in the past, there is said to be no need for an amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act to ensure this result. The Unemployment Board carries its own insurance on relief workers and can thus make whatever arrangements it likes for the payment of compensation, provided, of course, that these payments are not below those prescribed in the Workers’ Compensation Act. In . the past, compensation to relief workers has been on tho basis laid down in the Act, as a result of which they have been limited to obtaining not more than two-thirds of the amount they have earned ou relief work.