CITY COUNCIL LABORERS.

Evening Star, Issue 5969, 29 April 1882, Page 4

CITY COUNCIL LABORERS.

to the editor. Sir,—As the representative journal of the working classes, through your columns I wish to draw attention to an injustice that has been done the laborers employed by the City Council. Some time ago their wages were reduced from 7s 6d to 6s 6d per day without any justifiable reason. The step does not seem to have been taken on the ground of economy, as the Council have since raised the salaries of several of the clerks who were already in receipt of good incomes. Naturally, the reduction has caused great dissatisfaction among a class who were already poorly paid, and who without question are the hardest worked employe's of the Council. The reduction formed no general Bcheme of retrenchment, other than that Peter has seemingly been robbed to pay Paul. Men whose wages were already barely sufficient to enable them to do more than provide the bare necessaries of life have been ground down to a pittance which, looking to the casualties of lost time through bad weather or sickness, renders it utterly impossible for them to make provision for a rainy day or old age. The reduction, besides, is not only inopportune, but unwarranted by the state of the labor market. I am informed by one of the principal labor agents that men are not procurable at 8s per diem —that is, hard-working, industrious msn such as are in the employ of the Council. In the face of such facts, it is not unreasonable that a grievance is felt; and it would be only natural if it was resented by the men in the only practical way that a sense of injustice can and frequently is—by lessened energy and interest in their work. Give men a fair day's pay and you will get a fair day's work. Experience has proved this. At any rate you will command the best labor, and I presume the City Council do not wish their employ to become a refuge for drones and incapables through a false economy. It would be a graceful act on the part of the Council to re-consider the position of the late reduction, and one I am sure that would be endorsed by every ratepayer in the City. —I am, etc., A Sympathiser. Dunedin, April 29.