UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 December 1930, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD

EXEMPTIONS FROM LEVY , < HARDSHIP AVOIDED [PEB PBESB ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, December 12. Regulations to be gazetted shortly, have now been made under the Unemployment Act, wholly exempting from the payment of the unemployment levy every person who having served in the war of 1914-19 as a member of any of His Majesty’s Naval, Military or Air Forces, raised in any part of the British Dominions, is for the time being in receipt of a pension granted by a Government of any jurisdiction in respect of his total disablement through such service, and exempting, to the extent specified, the following persons and classes of persons: — Every person, who on the due date of such quarterly instalment is 65 years of age or over, and whose income from all sources during the three months immediately preceding such due date has not exceeded the average sum of £2 per week, and who has not obtained the consent of the Unemployment Board to his exclusion from the exemption hereby created; providing that any person seeking the consent of the Board to such exclusion shall make application in writing, to the Board on that behalf, setting out grounds thereof; providing also that the consent of the Board may at any time be withdrawn after reasonable notice.

(2) Every person who, on the due date of such quarterly instalment and for at least the whole of the month on the first day of which such instalment is due is, through any physical or mental disability unable regularly to follow any occupation or calling for a livelihood, and whose income from all sources during the three months immediately preceding such due date has not exceeded the average sum of £2 a week. (3) Every person who is for the time being, a member of a religious body whose rules forbid the possession by its members of any personal property, except clothing and similar personal effects. (4) Every person who, on the due date of such quarterly instalment, and during the whole of the month immediately preceding such due , date, has been registered as unemployed at one office of the Department of Labour, and who has not received any income.

(5) Every person in respect of whom the Unemployment Board is satisfied by resolution passed prior to the due date of such quarterly instalment, that by reason of sickness or poverty, it would produce undue hardship upon such person, or his dependents to require such person to pay the said instalment.

LOCAL BODY SUBSIDIES WELLINGTON, December 12. The attention of the Unemployment Board has been drawn to complaints by local bodies that they were unable to obtain the £2 for £1 subsidies under the first Christmas relief scheme. However, it is pointed out that the Board would not, under this scheme give any subsidy to local bodies on Government or Highway funds. All subsidies were granted on the local authorities’ revenue fuuds, or special contributions raised by them for unemployment relief. It is clear that if the Board gave a subsidy on the money granted to a local authority by the Government, it Would be making a straight-out gift of State funds, and not making a subsidy at all. This would apply equally to the granting of subsidies on Highways fuuds. A protest has been made by the Mayor of Thames that his Council s request for a subsidy was refused. However, in this case the Borough was prepared to provide £lOO for a certain work, and the Highways Board £2OO. A subsidy of £2 for £1 was sought on the £3OO, but the Board would then be subsidising the Highways Board, and not the Council.

“HARVESTING” GRANTS. WELLINGTON, December 1?. That portion of the Unemployment Board scheme relating to the subsidy on harvesting work has drawn criticism from the Secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, who said, in a statement published to-day, that the scheme would tend to break down the few Arbitration Court awards operating in the interests of rival workers. He added that his Union had instructed the workers to refuse to accept work on the harvest fields at a lesser rates , than that paid to the threshing mill workers. Under the Board’s scheme a subsidy will be paid on the wages of the men engaged in harvesting provided, of course, that they are engaged as a special relief measure, and not in the ordinary course of employment by the employer. The point at issue has been definitely cleared up by a special memorandum drawn un by the Board to-day for the local committees, and which’ reads: “The Board wishes specially to emphasise that the harvesting to be included for subsidy does not include the harvesting of wheat oats, barley or maize, unless for ensilage; nor does it include harvesting where’ the labour would otherwise be engaged in any case.”