COST OF LIVING

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 9 October 1922, Page 5

COST OF LIVING

EFFECT ON WAGES

ARBITRATION COURT'S PRONOUNCEMENT.

(BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 9. The court says that the rates fixed by awards and industrial agreements are, in case of time rates, 60 per cent, above the rates payable in 1914, and in the case of piecework rates 50 per cent, higher. These increases were adopted from the rational agreement made m February, 1920, which provided tor increases on the basis of the price statistics for food for the month of January, 1920, which then showed an increase of 57.76 per cent, over the pnoes^ruling in July, 1914. The court accordingly decided to base the subsequent six-monthly increases and reductions of rates on the percentage of increase or decrease disclosd by the Government Statistician's returns of food prices for the months of March and September in each year. The 57 76 per cent, increase of January, 1920, was represented by an increase of 41 21 per cent, in March, 1922, and by an in?noo Se °rL S9M P*l" cen*- in September, 1U22. The reduction in the rates of coal miners made by the last order of the court was more than the 'reduction made by the general order affecting the workers in other industries, whose cost of living adjustments are based on all groups of statistics. Owing to the drop m food .prices having been very much smaller during the past six months than it was during the preceding period, the reduction in the miners 7 rates is, on this occasion, a very small one. From the figures given in the illustration the reduction works out at 2d per day on time rates and Id per day on piecework.