EMPLOYERS “HARD HIT”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 202, 27 July 1926, Page 3

EMPLOYERS “HARD HIT”

INSURANCE OF WORKERS. NEW SOUTH WALES SCHEME. PROBLEMS FOR COMMISSION. SYDNEY, July 15. It is not at all unlikely that before very long tho workers will find Mr Lang’s little gift, in tho form of the Workers’ Compensation Act, more remarkable, like Pandora’s box, for the ills accompanying it than the good. Manufacturers are already raising prices to the retailers, who in turn will naturally pass the added burden along to tho public. There is talk, too, of increased ferry fares in consequence of the Act. Faced with the added burden of the new legislation, it is not at all unlikely that employers, before they take out covers, will now insist upon the medical examination of every employee. If this course is adopted, then there are going to be many more unemployed. It will not surprise employers if this is followed by an Unemployment Insurance Act. As far as can bo seen, about the only ones who will benefit by the Act will be the Victoi'ian manufacturers. To cover each one of the 159,(174 employees in the factories, totalling nearly 7400, in New South Wales, tlio manufacturers of this State, it is estimated, will be called upon to find immediately £389,204. The general feeling among manufacturers in New South Wales is that, on the top of the 44-hours week, it will just about place them at the mercy of their rivals, especially in Victoria, and swallow up the effective protection of the tariff. The manufacturers are being urged to fight the Act tooth and claw through the highest courts, but as the Government can be relied upon, in such an event, also to put up a fight it will possibly be like throwing good money after bad. It is not insurance against accident and disease, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, say the employers, that they aro objecting to; hut ambiguities and undelinahle risks which, it is ielt, make the position Gilbertian. Take tho fashionable little influenza germ, for example. The commission charged with the administration of the Act will need to invoke tho wisdom of Solomon to determine where a worker suffering from influenza picked up the germ. 'Jo determine whether the worker was attacked by this little • sprouting seed in his employer’s establishment or on the way to liis job is only one of the intricate little problems which face the commission. Take, again, the clause which provides that injury sustained going to or coming from work shall be compensated. Strangely enough, the disease risk is not included in that clause; it applies only to injury. If, for example, a worker whoso homeward journey lies in a northerly direction from his job proceeds southward for liis own purpose, and is injured, he will not be entitled to compensation, because in such a case the deviation would be for a reason unconnected with the man’s job. What a nice little contract it will be, however, if a man is injured, to determine whothei; lie proceeded straighthome, as he will he expected to do under the Act, or whether ho deviated from the straight path, to see a man about a dog or lor some other purpose. This, is the sort of thing that has got the employers’ backs up. One of the biggest retail establishments in Sydney, employing about 3000 hands, will have an outlay 12 tunes greater under the Act than foimeilj. Their feelings about the matter can be understood. Even employees are viewing it with disquiet. That some oE them will be on the labour market is inevitable.