COST OF LIVING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1940, Page 10

COST OF LIVING

TRYING TO KEEP PACE

BRITISH WAGES GOING UP

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, December 29

Ten thousand cinema workers are to receive substantial wage increases from January 1. They make another addition to the growing army of workers who are getting more pay—mainly owing to the increased cost of living. Since the war it is estimated that 4,000,000 workers have received increases totalling £30,000,000 a year. According to the Ministry of Labour Gazette, weekly wage increases secured since the outbreak of war in the industries for which statistics are regularly compiled amount to £214,000.

Main industries in which advances have been secured include agriculture, fishing, mines, chemicals, iron and steel, shipbuilding and ship repairing, electricity, cotton and textiles, clothing, leather, distribution, railway, bus, and tram and trolley bus workers, dockers, warehousemen, Government and municipal employees. The cinema employees, who now join this list, include projectionists, attendants, ushers, cashiers, and cleaners in over 600 cinemas.

Working hours will be reduced, and improvements in other working conditions effected.

Other groups of workers who are making moves for wage increases include civil servants, miners, and railwaymen. Under the cost-of-living slid-, ing scale arrangement, a certain number of railwaymen will receive 3s a week advance on base rates from January %. This is in addition to the extra pay to be given under the award of the National Tribunal, which includes a 50s a week minimum wage in London. A substantial amount will be paid out next week as there will be back pay from October 28, when the tribunal's award took effect. The railwaymen are now demanding a further 10s a week.