CHANGED CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 147, 19 December 1930, Page 12

CHANGED CONDITIONS

INCREASE NOT WARRANTED

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, 18th December. The action of the Arbitration Court iv increasing the wages of electrical linesmen was considered at a meeting of the advisory board of the Auckland Provincial Employers' Association. It was resolved: — "That this association enters an emphatic protest against the action of the Court in awarding increases in wages to linesmen and their assistants against the weight of evidence at a time like | the present, when the whole Domin- j ion is suffering under a serious depress-1 ion, and wages and salaries not covered by the Arbitration Court award are in many cases either being reduced or are under review. It was clearly shown in Court that any increase in wages must of necessity result in lessening the number of hands employed. "The memorandum of the award and Mr. Prime's dissent should be carefully noted, as they 'show very clearly that in making the award the Court merely followed a precedent it had created in the South in 1929, without taking into consideration the fact that economic conditions have seriously changed in the meantime." It was also resolved: "That the advisory board of the New Zealand Employers' Federation be requested to give consideration to this matter, and voice a protest on behalf of the employers of the Dominion."