FACTORY MANAGERS’ PAY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 2 July 1926, Page 4

FACTORY MANAGERS’ PAY

TARANAKI AND ELSEWHERE. A COMPARISON IN RATES ASSOCIATION TO TAKE ACTION. Though the Taranaki province has been the home of the dairy industry in the North Island since its first struggles to fame, it is strange that many of the managers of Taranaki factories are (according to their own statement) paid less than the rate ruling in other and less favoured parts of the Dominion. The difference between the Dairy Factory Managers’ Association schedule, which is the basis of payment in some 90 per cent, of the factories in Now Zealand, and the rate of pay in the majority of Taranaki concerns amounts, it is contended, to 10 per cent, less as regards butter, and 12 per cent, less as regards cheese. At yesterday’s annual meeting of the Taranaki branch of the Managers ’ Association. a discussion arose, in the course of- which the foregoing particulars were made public. A visitor curbed a tendency en the part of the meeting to go into committee on the subject, and urged that the Press be permitted to use the information. After members had urged an immediate but prudent submission of the association’s schedule to the directorates by the individual managers, it was decided that the association’s executive should wait upon the Taranaki Employers’ Union in further support of a general application in Taranaki of the wage scale ruling elsewhere in the Dominion. THE EMPLOYERS’ SIDE. A Hawera Star reporter interviewed Mr J. B. Murdoch, of the Joll dairy interests, upon the subject of pay to the Taranaki managers. Asked if he were aware that the Taranaki men were paid 1 less than in. other districts, Mr* Mil r doc h said: “It is news to me.” Others might have information to that effect, but, as far as he was aware, there was no difference. He felt sure that the managers were well treated andi that they were satisfied. The concern he was connected with employed seven or eight managers, who. Air Murdoch considered, were pleased with their work. Mr J. R. Corrigan, chairman of directors of the Hawera. Dairy Company, was more emphatic than. Mr Murdoch. “There are no better paid men in any industry in New Zealand,” said Mr Corrigan. The pay was considerably higher than before the war; in some cases in Taranaki managers were paid higher rates than in other centres. The Hawera. Dairy Company had five branch managers and a general manager, all of whom were satisfied. CONDITIONS IN WAIKATO. A farmer from the Waikato,- who has a thorough knowledge of conditions both in that and in other ‘dairy districts, states that in South Auckland the schedule of pay drawn up by the Dairy Factory Managers’ Association was not the minimum of the wages paid to those controlling the companies’ manufactures. The visitor proceeded to quote the case of one dairy company who advertised for a mangaer at £SO above the managers’ .schedule rate, and, not considering the applicants were the best procurable, immediately raised the salary offered iby .-£IOO, so ’it might be able to take the choice of the best managers in New Zealand. In another factory, where a manager was receiving £4OO, the shareholders-, at their annual, meeting, voted a bonus of £IOO. In view of the conditions in the North, the visitor was of the opinion that, given a continuation of the present rates of pay in Taranaki, an exodus of good nu?n might he expected. THE TWO SCHEDULES.

The schedule of wages as applied for by the Managers' Association, and than paid in Taranaki, give the following' comparisons:— CHEESE. v

BUTTER. Managers Employers Tons output 201 to .100 .. £IOO/5/- £283 lu addition to tlie above rates of ■wages, the conditions, both in the case of the employers’ schedule and that of the factory ■ mangers’, provide for the granting of a free house, and the usual perquisites—cheese, milk, butter and fuel. The allowances, in cash value, equal up to £2 per week.

Tons output Managers Employers £ s. d. £ 200 to 225 290 12 6 255 301 to 350 353 2 6 309 501 to 600 481 0 0 421 700 and over, by mutual arrangement.