RATES EXPLAINED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 77, 1 April 1931, Page 12

RATES EXPLAINED

EFFECT OF CHANGE

The new rates of pay for relief workers, 12s 6d a day for married men and 9s a day for singlo men, came into operation as from to-day. The rates are based on an eight-hour day at Is CJd and Is l-}d per hour respectively. They apply to the following Unemployment Board schemes which are fit present in operation:—4a, farm work on wages; 4b, farm work, on contract; 5, work through approved local bodies. The classification in operation previously, more days per week for married man than for single men, is unaltered. Tho previous rate was 14s a day. Strong protests against the new relief rates of wages are reported ■to have been made at a meeting at Palmcrston North. On the matter being referred to the chairman of the Unemployment Board (the Hon. S. G. Smith), he stated that it uppeared to be necessary to reiterate that tho rate of wages is a matter for the local bodies to determine. The Unemployment Board simply deals with the subsidies or refunds of wages which it will make, and has decided that these will in no case exceed the standard relief rates of wages on Government relief works which, from to-day, arc 9s a day for single men and 12s 6d per day for married men. If a local body decides .to pay more than these rates, it may do so, but tho Unemployment Board will not refund to the local bodies more than theso rates.