BIG INCREASE IN COMPANY PROFITS CLAIMED: WAGES LAG

Evening Star, Issue 26149, 10 July 1947, Page 8

BIG INCREASE IN COMPANY PROFITS CLAIMED: WAGES LAG

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 10. The hearing of claims for a standard pronouncement raising wages by 6d an hour, converted to a weekly wage, was continued in the Arbitration Court this morning, when Mr K. McL. Baxter, on behalf of the Federation of Labour and the New Zealand Federated Furniture and Related Trades Association, continued to present his case. “ Our argument has established beyond reasonable doubt that company profits, far from being stabilised, have increased, and are increasing at a significant rate,” Mr Baxter said. “ Between 1945 and 1946, while net profits rose by 33.4 per cent, and dividends rose by 15 per cent., the average award wage rate for adult male workers rose 1.2 per cent., providing ample justification for increasing the present standard rates. “It has long been a policy of workers’ organisations to urge an extension of benefits of the weekly wage to all workers. The court has recently heard detailed arguments about the practicability of application of a weekly wage to a' trade 1 which involves, in the main, outside work—namely, the painting trade. WEEKLY WAGE FOR ALL. " It is not possible here to enter into a detailed analysis of the difficulties peculiar to individual trades and occupations. It is our intention to state concisely our reasons for contending—first, why the principle of the weekly wage should have a universal application : and, second, that the present is a propitious time for such an extension to be made,” he continued. “A sense of security was basic to the general health and welfare of all persons. An important contributory factor to this was security on the job and some guarantee that earnings would not over a reasonable period fall below a known minimum. "We believe that a week’s security in the tenure of a job and known income is a modest request,” he added. , Continuing, Mr Baxter said the principle of a weekly wage was almost universally recognised in relation to female and junior workers.. He was unable to see why i any invidious, distinction . should be made penalising certain classes of male workers by denying them the small degree of security afforded by employment on a weekly basiii. ' During a period of full employment an anomalous position had arisen as between weekly and hourly workers in which hourly workers who were in receipt of the differential rate established by the Court by . way of compensation for the uncertainty of their employment had, in fact, been in . a more ;favourable position than weekly workers/ 1 since both had been fully employed and . a higher hourly rate paid to hourly workers had meant a greater weekly return. WEEKLY WORKERS’ CLAIMS. “ This, we contend, provides ample justification for' increasing rates of weekly, workers to the same level as those enjoyed by hourly workers, for it is obvious that a ‘ popular relationship ’ does not exist where two workers are being paid unequal' amounts for exactly the same kind of work. “ At first sight, this may appear to conflict with our first argument and with our general purpose in advocating the principle of a weekly wage, but if an analysis of the situation is considered as whole, it will be appreciated that there are two classes of injustices involved; first, those. which arise in individual cases—and it is not destroying the generality of our argument to say that there are many such—where hour-to-hour insecurity is detrimental to health and efficiency; second,, the injustice of unequal payment, which arises through payment at differential rates to workers doing the same job. “ ’*• cur that there is one way only of simultaneously .V, ootii classes of injustice. That is to establish a common weekly rate for both hourly and weekly workers.” PAID HOLIDAYS. It was evident, too, that other reasons which led the court to establish a higher rate for hourly workers had been subsequently removed. One was the question of paid holidays. The present position was: (1) The principle of paid statutory holidays, was generally recognised in awards and agreements for hourly as well as . for weekly workers; (2) the Factories Act made provision for eight paid statutory holidays; (3) by virtue of the Annual Holidays Act, 1944, all workers were now entitled to two weeks paid holiday annually.