WAGES ON PUBLIC WORKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 94, 22 April 1938, Page 8

WAGES ON PUBLIC WORKS

Commenting on the attitude of the Minister of Public Works towards the reported request by delegates of the New Zealand Workers' Union for an increase in pay for public works employees, "Twenty-one Years a Labourite" refers to the Minister's statement that the average rate of pay. was £1 a day. The correspondent holds that this does not apply to P.W.D. jobs in the vicinity of Wellington. In the course of inquiries he has found, he says, that on the Rimutaka jobs no man has ever earned over 16s a day. On the Pukerua Bay job, he continues, the majority of the men receive the standard rate, with the exception, of a few who are employed on co-operative contract work. On the Haywards-Pahautanui ,Road job" dozens of men who have never had the opportunity to be employed ori co-operative work receive 16s 8d a day, and that goes for. all other local jobs too. In addition all wet weather is lost time. A full week comes out at £4 0s 6Jd. An average of one wet day a. fortnight brings the weekly wage down to £3 12s 2Jd. From this may be taken transport charges— 4s for lorry charges from Wellington to Hay wards, • and 2s ,for tramfares, leaving £3 6s 2Jd—"undoubtedly," says the correspondent, "a princely wage for a man with a wife and four or five children." Co-operative parties, he states, have to work hard enough to make over £1 a day. "Mr. Semple also makes no mention of the high percentage of illness- amongst the workers employed on the Haywards-Pahau-tanui Road since the commencement of the work there on May 26, 1936."

On the question of annual holidays the correspondent says that after twelve months' continuous' service a man is entitled to a week's holiday with pay, but he is forced to take a further ten or twelve days at Christmas without pay. Men who are not entitled to annual holidays have to do the best they can for the whole period.