CAN'T LIVE ON 7/6

Evening Star, Issue 21216, 24 September 1932, Page 21

CAN'T LIVE ON 7/6

[Special to the ‘ Star.’] CHRISTCHURCH, September 23. ‘‘ Can even a single man possibly exist on 7s (id a week?” asked Mr E. H, Andrews, chairman of the Christ-

church Unemployment Committee, today. commenting on the report from Wellington that in future single relief workers in the cities will have to stand down every alternate week, thus earning 15s a fortnight, instead of 15s a week.

“As a matter of fact, nobody thought these men could do more than eke out a bare existence on 16s a week. This new regulation is simply denying single men the right to live in cities at all.”

This policy of the Unemployment Board, said Mr Andrews, was to refuse any relief work to single men who refused to go into camps. If this was being enforced the only single relief workers in cities now were men with dependents. That made the new regulation still more harsh.

The council of trade unions, a body known as the Canterbury Industrial Association of Workers, considered the new regulation at a meeting, when the opinion was expressed that it was absolutely unjust, as all these men with city jobs had dependents, single men without dependents being given tho choice of going to work in one of the camps, or getting no work at all. It was decided to write to the Acting Minister of Employment (Mr Hamilton) protesting against the regulation. [lt is understood that in future single men working on city relief jobs will have to stand down every alternate week, thus earning 15s a fortnight instead of 15s a week. Tho reason for this step is understood to be that it will provide several hundred more days for tho married men, who will take their places during tho stand-down week.] I