COSTS THAT NEED ANALYSIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 100, 24 October 1940, Page 10

COSTS THAT NEED ANALYSIS

Much more analysis than has been done so far requires to be applied to the co-operative contract system of waterfront work. Discussion by the Harbour Board last night showed that the Wellington port authority would be met with increased costs, at present only roughly calculable, and would receive no corresponding benefit. Workers loading and discharging overseas vessels now receive a bonus, or profit, and the Waterfront Control Commission has ordered the Harbour Board to pay to its employees working on cargo to or from the overseas vessels an amount per hour equal to the profit distributed to the casual workers. According to the only return available so far, this profit or bonus averaged 10.41 d per hour worked, and represented an increase of 30.62 per cent, in the basic hourly rate of wages. This was in addition to the 2d an hour increase in the! general wage rate for waterfront work and the 5 per cent, cost of living bonus ordered by the Commission when the Arbitration Court made its recent general order granting such an increase to award workers. The rate of work, according to the statement by the Minister of Labour, increased by 20 per cent., for which there was a 30.62 per cent, addition to wages. The Minister of Labour, in claiming that the system had been successful, set off against these bonus payments and the overtime paid for extended hours the saving effected in the stay of ships in New Zealand ports. But the Harbour Board, as was pointed out last night, does not benefit by this; rather it stands to lose port dues. Evidently, also, the whole of the costs have, not been reckoned. The cost of the extra payment to Harbour Board employees is one item that has just been debited, and it does not seem to be the last. There are other sections and groups of workers who will not be conlent to see 30 per cent, increases received by others and not demand a share. Then there is the cost of payment. The Wellington Harbour Board chairman last night estimated that it would have to find £25,000 extra a year for the waterside 2d an hour increase and the cost of living bonus of 5 per cent., and a further £5000 for the bonuses for overseas, vessels— £30,000 in all. It was rightly pointed out that this could not be obtained from increased returns —there were none —but must be collected by increased charges. The greater part would eventually be paid by primary producers. These have not received special bonuses or cost of living increases. In fact, they have been told very definitely that their prices are to be stabilised. There are evidently here several questions of relative justice: whether Harbour Board employees not working on co-operative contract should have a profit or bonus equal to that paid to contract workers, whether a 20 per cent, rale increase warrants a 30.62 per cent, wage addition, whether farmers whose prices are stabilised should have to pay higher costs to meet rising wages and bonuses, and whether a 5 per cent, cost of living bonus which the Government stopped at a salary limit should be paid without such a limit to the employees of the Government Waterfront Commission.