STAND-DOWN WEEK.

Evening Star, Issue 21581, 29 November 1933, Page 7

STAND-DOWN WEEK.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Having been transferred to the Peninsula for relief work on account of being outside the city area, I would like to write a few facts for the edification and enlightenment of the public, but more especially the clerk of the Labour Bureau, who informed mo 1 would receive extra pay daily to compensate lor loss incurred during this week of want. There seems to be some misunderstanding, for even the chairman of the Unemployment Committee informed me personally that lie was under the impression that the country rate was Ills (id a day.

A man with three dependents at city rates receives £1 12s fid a week regularly. For the Peninsula the amount is £1 8s 9d for throe weeks, pay day Monday, which means serai-starvation each week-end. Thus the Peninsula man gets (is 9d a week less when working, nothing during the stand-down week, and, furthermore, there elapses fourteen days over the gap from the last payment to the first payment. The plight'of city relief workers is deplorable, but time, of the Peninsula workers even worse. To officials well paid, well housed, and weil led, the weeding out of those residing Outside the city who have been working within it hitherto and transferring them is of no consequence, hut it is vital to those affected, and if the interests of economy have prompted these measures, surely it behoves these officials to use their energies to lind more useful work for us rather than force semi-starved people to seek assistance from public bodies elsewhere.'—l am, etc.. B. E. Kite. November 28.