RISE IN WAGES FOR 400,000 SHOP EMPLOYEES

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 September 1949, Page 6

RISE IN WAGES FOR 400,000 SHOP EMPLOYEES

LONDON, August 31.—The British Minister of Labour (Mr George Isaacs) has approved orders giving wage increases to 400,000 workers in food shops and hairdressing establishments, says the Evening News. The Government, by conceding the wage increases, has avoided a struggle which threatened the wh(se basis of the Trades Union Congress’s support for its wage stabilisation policy. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which would have led the revolt, need hot mow table a protest resolution at the T.U.C. conference. The hairdressers, after a delay of nearly a year and the food shop employees, after nearly six months, will receive wage increases ranging from 4’s to 6s a week.

It is expected that orders approving the increases for 400,000 shop workers employed by drapers, booksellers, and stationers will be approved in the next few weeks. According to the special correspondent of the. New Zealand Press Association in London, Mr Isaacs’s decision on the wage increases is the outcome of the embarrassing position in which the Government found itself when the Ministi-y of Labour approved a scale of higher wages for shop assistants, and the Board of Trade proposed to issue an order making it compulsory for retail shopkeepers to reduce the prices of utility footwear and clothing. This meant that, while one Ministry was ordering retailers to increase the wages of their staffs, another was ordering them to decrease the prices of their goods. As a result, Mr Isaacs delayed signing the wage orders on the plea that they should be co-ordinated with the Board of Trade proposals. This caused trouble with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. The union at one stage carried the matter to the Prime Minister (Mr Attlee) and threatend to raise it at the forthcoming annual conference of the T.U.C.