NO HOLIDAY PAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 10, 13 January 1941, Page 6

NO HOLIDAY PAY

MEN AT WAIOURU CAMP

CRITICISM RESENTED

OTHER CAUSES OF DELAY

"The statement made in an article in the 'Evening Post' on Friday that an important cause of delay in completing Waiouru Camp on schedule time is that the men have taken 'inordinately long holidays' is one to which every man on the job will very greatly object, for it is an unjustifiable aspersion upon them and is as incorrect as it is unfair," said Mr. P. M. Butler, national secretary of the Building Labourers' Federation, on Saturday. "In the first place, these men get no paid holidays at all—not even Christmas Day—and there have been very patent causes for delay other than any possible fault of the men who have done the work, under most unpleasant conditions, during most of the months they have been there. "When I say that the men at Waiouru have no holidays as have other workers I mean just that, but most of the employers in the building trades, including some employers at Waiouru, arbitrarily closed down at Christmas, for periods ranging from 10 to 16 days," said Mr. Butler. "This meant, in effect, the dismissal of the workers for this period and that they were reengaged when the employers chose to reopen. "Practically all the workers were recruited from centres or towns distant from Waiouru, and a large number came from as far away as Dunedin, and, in order to spend a week or eight days with their families they spent four days, and in some cases more, in travelling. In the period of sixteen days—not seventeen as stated by the writer of the article—of this alleged holiday period there were six nonworking days, that is, three Sundays and three statutory holidays. EXCEPTIONALLY LONG HOURS. "Most of these men," continued Mr. Butler, "have been working exceptionally long hours per week for months. Anyone who knows Waiouru will admit that conditions there are for much of the year exceptionally trying; as late as the third week in November the men worked in a fall of sleet and snow. The men at Waiouru are not paid 'overtime' in the usual sense at all. The 'country clause' of the award applies at Waiouru, and its effect is that they receive only one penny an hour extra for hours in excess of 40 a week. Such men should receive a month's holiday on full pay rather than abuse. "This is not the first occasion on which aspersions have been cast on the workmen at Waiouru, but if the full facts were inquired into there would be reason for aspersions elsewhere. Plans have been altered considerably during the progress of the work, and delay must have resulted here.' The men have played their part well, under most trying conditions. "Visitors to Waiouru today come away impressed with the fine results of the work done, including the thousands of square yards of roads and sealed and dry parade grounds, lawns and beautifying work, but what they cannot appreciate from looking at what is there today is that for months these men worked in mud and slush and in the long winter months in bitterly cold conditions. But it appears that, notwithstanding their efforts, they are to be made scapegoats. This latest attack upon them for taking 'inordinately long holidays,' when, in fact, not one penny of pay was received by them, is rather too much."