PAY OF CASUALS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1924, Page 9

PAY OF CASUALS

HARBOUR BOARD'S RATES

CONSIDERED BY MEN TOO LOW

SOME COMPARISONS MADE.

Messrs. L. Glover and J. Laurenson, representing the casual employees oi the Wellington Harbour Board, waited upon the board last evening to ask that the rates of pay for casual employees should be increased to build up a weekly wago at least equal to that determined by the Arbitration Court as the basic wage.

Mr. Glover referred first to the general terms of the Waterside Workers' Award and the decision of the Court that an additional 25 per cent- should be added to the basic wage of £3 16s Id, making a total of, £4 15s l^d, on ac count of the particular nature of the work, the hours during which labour was to be called upon, the spasmodic demand, and so on, and then laid before the board a series of figures, based upon statistics drawn up by the board's officers, showing average weekly earnings of different classes of casual workers during the first six months of the operation of the present award. The "ordinary time" payment of 48 shed men— that is, , picked men—said Mr. Glover, worked out at £3 7s 7d per week, and with overtime at: £4 Bs. The, figures .showed that those men on an average worked 31 hours, and if the board was to make their wages up to what had been provided as a minimum by the Court they should have been, in receipt of 2s sjd per hour, or, in other words, during the six months period those men had on an average received £11 lls-less than they would have been paid upon the level of the basic wage. Their ordinary weekly earnings, to put it another way, had been 8a 6d below the basic wage (without the 25 per cent.)j and if ordinary time and overtime were taken into accouijt their wages had been 7s 1-Jd per week lower than the Court's figure. The great bulk of the men, the stackers, had earned an average of £2 17s lOd ordinary, and 15s 8d overtime, a total of £3 16s 6d, and they had worked an average of 26 hours per week, although they had been available to the board during the whole of the time in which their services might be required. To make their rates up to the basic wage set down by the Court they would have had to receive 2s ll^d per hour instead of 2a 2d, or, during the six months' period, those men had feceived £23 14s 6d less than ths amount the Court had fixed as a minimum, the difference between payment received by them for ordinary time and the basic wage being 18s 3d per weak, while tha total of ordinary and overtime, £3 16s 6d, earned by them was £1 Is 7Jd below the basic wage, plus 25 per cent. Stackers, continued Mr. Glover, had received in the period £22 12s lOd less than would have been paid them on the basic wage level (ordinary time 17s 5d per week short, overtime and ordinary time together £1 3s Bid short of basic wage, plus 25 per cent.) and gangway men £32 10s lOd in the period, while the "odd men's" ordinary and overtime payment had been -£1 15s 9^d per week below that fixed by the Court as a minimum. LABOURERS' RATES' COMPARED. The -averages given, moreover, Mr.' Glover maintained, were" not based upon the actual money paid, but upon the rates of the highest paid men in the .working groups, the higher paid of two stackers working together, Vfor instance. A City Corporation labourer at the Ngahauranga quarries .received £4 17s per week, including travelling time, in comparison with rates as low as £2 5s paid by the Harbour Board, and the Wellington Gas Co., employee on labouring work £4 7s 5d for a 44-hour week, whereas the very pick of the Harbour Board s casual men received only 7d per week more, ordinary time and overtime, and, moreover, had to hold themselves in readiness for engagement from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., to finish ai 10 p.m. on five days of the week, -or midnight when finishing off a boat. >■ ' , t'le ca! e was before the Court the union had certainly understood that the board would give its casual employees a fair chance, but was that so? Immediately the board had obtained exemption for crane-drivers, it made their standard wage £5 14s 7d, but was it fair that the average wage in the next . grade should be only £3 7s 7d for ordinary time simply because one* wasfea permanent and the other unfortunate enough to be a casual hand? There were among the casuals some particularly fine men, capable of undertaking any class of .work that was to be done, men who were absolutely reliable, but the position would simply result, if the board was going to ask those men to eke out an existence on an ordinary time wage of £3 7s 7d, or, including overtime £4 8s Od, in such men going elsewhere and leaving their places open for the class of men whom the Court had referred to as undesirables and better away from the waterfront altogether. Again, if the wages paid by the board were so low a temptation Was placed in the workers with wives and families at home in need of the goods being handled-. The policy, of the board tended to mako for dishonesty in such circumstances, and certainly did not encourage the best type of men to take up the work; ■ .

BASIC WAGE TOO LOW. Mr. Laurenson. maintained that the Court had fixed the rate too low in any case, for as the work was so spasmodic in nature higher hourly rates should have been awarded. Again, Wellington was a town in which the cost of living was high, and the Court had had in mind in fixing the basic wage a family in which there were two children', but what if they were four? The basic wage, he maintained, should "have been fixed at £4 10s per week. The rent allowance, to his mind, waß absurd, and. the old idea of one day's pay for the week's rent was something never approached in fact to-day. The Court had apparently collected its "sample" from a series of old shacks, all of which were subject to the Kent Restriction regulations. It was not possible for men to have'a peaceful outlook when they had to toil day in and day out on a bare living wage. New Zealand watersiders were paid ninepence per hour less than Australian workers. Mr. Laurenson also placed a series of calculations before the board. POSITION BETTER TO-DAY. The chairman, Mr. G. Mitchell, said that it Wa3 quite, recognised' that the board had good men in its employ. The greatest difficulty in regard to wages had been that work had not been available for the men. The figures chosen by Mr. Glover, unfortunately, dealt with the worst period experienced for many yeare, and naturally during that bad period the men had suffered. It was not quite fair to take that period, but he was not saying for a moment that the. men were receiving what they should receive or more than they should receive. The union should also take the figures for the latest six months and see how the position had improved. The conditions of the casual hand had aho ,

been improved by the reduction in the number of the ■ board's permanent employees, the result,, of course, being that there was more work to be divided among the casuals, and he would like to know whether that policy was agreeable to the union.

Figures taken out by the' board's officers, continued the chairman, had shown that over a later period than that ' cited by Mr. Glover the wages of the picked men had averaged £4 12s 2d, the highest individual average being £5 8s 6d and the lowest £3 15s 6d, while the rates for other grades in the same sequence were £4 4s'6d, £4 14s 4d £3 7s 7d; £4 3s 7d, £4 9s lOd, £3 10s Id; £3 18s Id, £4 6s 2d, £3 68 6d; £3 8s 2d, £4 4s lOd, £2 8s 7d. The increase in trade and the reduction of the number of men on the roster, then, had had the effect of increasing the allround rates of pay. A MATTER FOR THE COURT. The board, he was afraid, had no jurisdiction to deal with the matter, and he thought the union would have been wiser to put its case before the Aroitration Court, and if the Court granted San increase the board would gladly pay it, but it would obviously be a most difficult matter for the board to make a differentiation from the - award now made however much it might desire to improve the men's position.

In answer to a question, Mr. Glover said that' the union did not ask that men who worked only two days per week should be paid the minimum asked for, for the. proposal would refer only to those upon the board's roster. The figures he had given were the latest that were available to him, but if further figures were made available he would be quite content that the men's argument should be based on them.

The union could take the case before the Court only if the board agreed to that course. The policy of reducing the number of men on the roster was a matter for the board and not for the union.

The figures would be made available, answered Mr. Mitchell, but it was to be understood that he was not committing the board; he had merely expressed his own views. Naturally, the board could not treat an award lightly when it employed only a fraction of the men working under that award.

The representations made, the chairman assured the deputation, would be fully considered by the board. • * .