THE EXERTION WAGE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14977, 24 April 1909, Page 8

THE EXERTION WAGE.

Some of the labour organisations seem bont on trying tho patience of the public. There is plenty of legitimate work for the Trades and Labour Councils to do, and we daro say they try to do it according to their lights. But they quite fail to realise the value of tact and moderation. There will not, we think, bo any very widespread sympathy with tho Wellington Trades and Labour Council in its protest against tho payment of an " exertion wage" to tho workers in the Otira tunnel. The payment seems to havo been justified by the results. Tho contractors believed that they were not obtaining a full measure of work from the hands, and in order to stimulate them to special activity they offered an extra payment, over and abovo the wage fixed by tho Arbitration Court, to be paid for all work in excess of a stated standard. The contractors, it must bo remembered, aro working under a time limit, and it is reasonable to assume that they have no very considerable margin of profit in sight. Moreover, in tho class of work in which they are on gaged it would be impossible to tell if the men were deliberately going slow. In the circumstances, they are certainly justified in offering inducements to tho men to exert themselves. We believe that tho principle of the exertion wage is capable of a much wider application with advantage to industry generally, and in this case, at any rate, there is no room for a difference of opinion as to the wisdom of the paymont. The nion themselves have no reason to complain. Whatever amount of work they do, thoy receivo the fixed minimum wage, but apparently the Wellington agitators desire to see tho minimum wago operating also as a maximum wage. We are trying to tako the protest seriously, but it would bo easy to describe it as ridiculous. Tho whole point of the objection to the exertion wago seems to be that the agitators are anxious to cover up the practice of limiting the output. We could havo some patience with the Wellington Council if it observed tho ordinary courtesies of controversy. When the Prime Minister, in answeT to its protest, gave a straightforward statement of the position of the Government in the matter, tho president of tho Council thought fit to describe his letter as a "shufflo." Tho workers' leaders aro simply prejudicing their cause by such' wanton rudeness, and if Labour desires sympathetic consideration for its grievances it will have to keep its chosen representatives under severe restraint.