RELIEF WORK

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2134, 13 February 1929, Page 6

RELIEF WORK

PAID BY RESULTS

THE MINISTER’S ANSWER

TO FARMERS’ UNION CRITICS

,Pm P/eo» AssuUalioiu Wellington, leb. 11. That poetically all the relief work under the Public Works Department was arranged on the ooioperatno contract system and that relief jobs should he regarded as , stop-gaps wena points emphasised by the Minister of Pub lie Works, the Hon. E. Ransom, in. reply to allegations made at the meeting of the executive of the New Zealand Furmen i’ Union recently that the payment of full rates of pay to men on relief works was enticing men to', oin. the ranks of the unemployed. Mr E aiiSOm pointed qiit tliat the J ..position was not by any means as Jiad been, stated at the confercliee. It was a. fact -tihat the standard/ rates of pay were now paid on. re-' lief works under his department,] hut practically all the work was ar-' ranged on the co-operative cijntract' /system, >i¥’Vi prices per yard for ma-i terial handled being based on thestandard rate of 14s per day. Only; a very small proportion of work: was done by day wages' and under, the system in force in the depart-: trie lit, which was really under the' piece-work system, a man’s earnings 1 depended entirely on his own efforts,; The prices per yard were so arraiig-, od that a good man could earn good' wages for a, good dnyV work. Mr Ransom further stated that in; the few instances 'where men w ( ere! ; engaged on straight-out day wages, tly work was very closely supefvised and it was only those men who I rendered, honest service /who were selected for re-employment when the job on which they were engaged reached completion.