THE LABOUR WORLD.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 239, 21 September 1922, Page 3

THE LABOUR WORLD.

WHAT A LIVING (?) WAGE MAY MEAN. Claims are often made that the living wage as determined by Industrial Courts. Arbitration Courts, or Boards of Trade should be increased. What is overlooked is that production may be such as to render payment an impossibility. That has happened in the United States in regard to a claim made by the president of the railway department of the American Federation of Labour. In presenting demands of the shop craft unions for higher wages he stated that the sum of 2637 dollars was the minimum annual budget on which the average family could live. In Australian currency this amount would be represented by £592. As the hearings before the Labour Board progressed the president of the railway department altered his annual minimum wage or budget to 2133 dollars ,equal to £4Bl. The Labour Board commented on the two budgets as follows: —“The budget of 2637 dollars, if given to every family impartially, would require the sum of 25.000,000,000 dollars in excess of the total income of all the industries and individuals in the United States. . . . The budget of 2133 dollars is open to the same fata criticism. . . .If the country's 25,000,000 families were guaranteed an income of 2133 dollars each, the total income of the entire country would be exceeded bv the sum of 13,225,000,000 dollars.”