UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 August 1934, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

BUILDING SUBSIDY. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, August 28. Nearly 300 applications have already been received by the Unemployment Board for assistance under the extended building subsidy scheme. Up to August 18, the date one month after the scheme had been announced, 217 of these applications, involving works to a total valine of £133,800, and providing work for 897 men, had been approved. Up to the same date, 65 applications, involving 244 men and a sum of £40,684, had been declined.

A GISBORNE PROTEST. GISBORNE, August 28. A large meeting of citizens and prominent business people was held tonight to discuss the Unemployment Board’s refusal to pay standard rates of pay to the unemployed, on the £lO,OOO job to level and improve the Gisborne aerodrome. After the position, had been fully outlined by various the following resolution was passed unanimously:—“That this meeting of Gisborne citizens protests against the attempts of the Unemployment Board to force the unemployed to work on the airport on the contract terms and conditions offered, considering the job to be an essential and necessary work. Further, the Government requires airport ground for defence purposes, which we believe to be part of war preparations, and cannot under any circumstances, be classed as relief work. We fully support the demands of the unemployed that the airport job be made a standard work and that the men be employed full-time at standard rates.” The resolution also demanded that the men who were stood down for refusing to work be reinstated on the No. 5 Scheme.