DAY LABOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 19844, 18 April 1928, Page 2

DAY LABOUR.

TO TUB EDITOR-Siiv-Tlie. recent award of the Court of Arbitration under which hourly workers receive Is. lid an homy seems to have caused quite a Hut or. in the municipal dovecot. One would imagine the extra penny means ruination and extra- rates. No one knows better than the present calamity howlers that four vears ago the tramway department decided to pay an hourly rate ol Js lid an hour, not by an award of I be Court of Arbitration, but by a resolution ol the Tramway Committee, those rates were subsequently embodied in the tramway award. To show that such payment, instead of bringing about increased expenditure, actually resulted in a saving, one lias only to bear in mind that the estimated cost of the Richardson street tramway construction works, based ob the wages paid before the Tramway Committee adopted the late tramway engineer’s recommendation to pay an hourly wage of Is lid, was £12,000. The men. carrying out this work were paid Is lid per hour; and the figures supplied to me in committee in 1926, before I was laid aside with illness, showed the actual cost to be £8,202 & lid, or a saving of £3.797 13s id. The estimated cost of the Exhibition line, exclusive of Forth street bridge, was £25,000. The actual cost was £20,109, or a saving of £4 891. I put this saving down to the fact that the higher wage attracted a wider field of practical and competent men to select from, and experienced foremen had firmness enough to select and retain the labour that would give value for the money. The tramway department’s share of the Forth street

bridge construction works was estimated at £2,500. Tlio actual half-cost was £2,586 3s 9d. The wage on this bridge job was Is Bsd in the early stage and Is lOd in the concluding portion of it.

The advocates of low wages ignore the fact that when the roadwork was being constructed to Waipori in 1913 the City Council only paid the minimum wage for town workers, and forced them to live apart from their families without a country allowance; The result of keeping two homes was equal to a reduction in wages. The competent worker who could get as good or better near his home was not an applicant. The result was that the work cost more than the estimated cost, if 1 go to buy an article off a business man and I am not prepared to pay the price for a good article, I am offered an article of inferior value. No employer will give something for nothing, but the worker is expected by the City Council to give a high value of work for a lower price. As with the business man, it is found tho value is inferior it the price is inferior. To say tho contractor pays less wages is wrong. The successful contiactor pays high wages to men who will give value for it. In working up the case lor (iiiarrvmcii before tho Arbitration Court' in 1925 1 found that the City Council paid spaders Is B;]d an hour, tlio then minimum in its quarries, and tho private contractors were paying 2s and 2s Id and higher for certain special work. This resulted in the City Council breaking men in to do the spalling and becoming the recruiting ground for the private contractor, because the lack of incentive prompted them lo go whore they could receive payment commensurate with their services. The city quarries can be made to pay when men are paid a wage according to services performed, but never if the city continues its policy of paying the maximum mad the minimum wage. Such a worker will go where he gets the maximum wage. There aro strong reasons why the Drainage Hoard should not at this stage go in for contract. Tlio board is still in possession ol the huge supplies of costly timber and excavating material used lo carry nut the Opoho contour channel, the Halsey street and Hanover street jobs, to say nothing ol timber required on reclaimed lands ol the Harbor Board which were earned out simultaneously. This timber and material would do for luturc works. The contract system would mean that a contractor must purchase costly timber and add it to bis estimate. Why should tho board bo called on to pay lor more timber vhen it already has a supply? Quo may expect .such a policy from men schooled in supervising coolie labor and desirous of keeping the worker down, but not from men who have evolved in onr country, with its former humanitarian ideals. Tho Drainage Board’s past experience of contracts resulted in contractors taking risks and dodging using timber, with the result that pipes shifted, and the board had to subsequently do the_ work again. Under contract fatal accidents had happened There is tho board’s liability for damages to be considered for wilful negligence in such cases. On tlio other hand, tho board in all its work carried out by direct labor Jms never had a fatal accident. By direct labor tho City Council through its trading concerns has made such profits that it is building a new Town Hall out of its trading concerns, alone and yearly give the people relief of rates "bv, f understand, 2 per cent, on tho capital value p,oiug to the general account. * . , The city, it is true, has earned out its buildings by contract. Against this 11. B. Slithers, in the ‘ Labour Magazine ’ in England, lolls where many municipalities and tho Government fbere have benefited by minding their own business and carrying on buildings lev direct labor. “Tho lowest tender for a certain tvpe of house at C litheroe was £1.255. Tbo Government' figure was £950. Direct labour built these homes for £7OO, n difference, of £555. On another typ* the saving was £92 nor house. At Newmarket the saving per house on builder’s lender was £353; on twenty bouses, £7,060. Port 'I a I hot saved £lll per bouse. Glasgow, on the Dnimoyne Estate of 3.18 bouses, has saved. £IBB per house. West Hartlepool saved from £22U to £2911 per house. Manchester .saved nearly £lO per house Derby saved £330 per bouse, all hv direct labour.” 1 quote the above in order lo show that direct labour has been extended el.seabere uifh advantage what time onr City Council, ignoring its own successes, proposes to take what looks like a retrograde step. Direct labour cuts out litigation charges for extras due to alterations. Some of ns remember the MlSbarry case in New South Wales that lasted over a year, and cost the State in litigation some £300,000, resulting in that State trying day labour, with advantage in reducing costs below estimates, and cutting out litigation. The City Council should accept _ the court’s decisions in the same spirit as Hi© general laborers in the past accepted_ the Arbitration Court’s adverse decisions. If instead of trying to got even with Mr Ralph Harrison and Mr Jack Robinson’s .success it looks at facts squarely, it will carry on tlio past wood work and secure the co-operation of the efficient workers tho present wage will attract to its service, and save money for the ratepayers.—! am. etc.. April 17. J- E. MacMaxvs.