THAT 14/- RATE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 8

THAT 14/- RATE

An answer was made on Thursday by the deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board to the statement by Mr. W. J. Poison that "the 14s a day had been established and endorsed as a principle of unemployment relief irrespective of the condition of the applicant." Mr. Burdekin stated that "it was the policy of the Unemployment Board not to interfere with existing scales of wages in force in New Zealand." Employers and employees were left absolutely free to make their own bargains as to wages. The Act gave the Board no power to fix wages, and the Board was not usurping a function, it did not possess. The Board, however, cannot maintain this detached attitude. It has no power to fix wages (except in training schemes), but it has full authority to make arrangements with public Departments, local bodies, and employers for works to relieve unemployment. It surely cannot be argued that the rate of wages shall be excluded from such arrangements. Government relief works are not under the control of the Board, but the Act clearly , contemplates that such works should be planned in consultation with the Board; and it is reasonable that the Board should be consulted as to conditions and wages. The Government has transferred the major responsibility for dealing with unemployment to the Board.» It is believed that the 14s a day rate is an important factor hindering the reduction of unemployment. If the Government refuses to allow the Board to deal with this factor, then the Board is not given the free hand which it should have. If the Board refuses to deal with it, and says it is its policy "not to interfere with existing scales of wages," then the responsibility lies with the Board. Somebody must accept responsibility for either altering or maintaining the 14s rate. Surely the Board should be responsible unless the Government, for political reasons, declares that the Board shall not be allowed to consider this part of the problem.