Slight Delay in Payment of P.W.D. Men

Northern Advocate, 25 January 1939, Page 2

Slight Delay in Payment of P.W.D. Men

Thirty men engaged by the Public Works Department in work on the Supreme Court building at WhapgareL were concerned regarding the apparent withholding of wages which they considered to be justly due. Since the job commenced, it has been customary for the men to be paid fortnightly, when they receive two weeks’ wages.

They were told yesterday, however, that on Friday they are to be given only one week’s wages, which will carry them up to the week ending January 17.

The week on which time is computed ends on a Tuesday. The men are at a loss to understand why the usual procedure has not been followed. This would have brought their payment up to January 24, Only Half Usual Pay. The average earnings on the job is about £4 a week, and the married men. who had made commitments in anticipation of receiving about £8 on Friday, were perturbed at the probability of receiving only half that amount.

The workers received (a pleasant

surprise this morning when they re-

ceived payment for a week’s work, with the promise that their earnings would be brought up to date next week with the distribution of a full fortnight’s pay. Mr R. H. Packwood, District Engineer, is absent from Whangarei today, and it is difficult to obtain an explanation for the position. However, it is understood that an attempt is being made to bring all Public Works Department pay periods within the district into uniformity.

0N her arrival at Auckland 3 r ester-

day, it was reported that the New Zealand Shipping Company's liner Ruahinc, now in her 30th year of service in the trade between England and the Dominion, would be broken up. This will probably be her last round voyage. The vessel, of 10.870 tons gross, carried thousands of soldiers to Europe during the war. The Ruahine was built in 1909.

ipilE Government motor ship Maul

Pcmare. which left Wellington at 5 o’clock last evening for Apia and Niue Island, put back from the Heads and anchored in Worser Bay for engine adjustments. An officer of the External Affairs Department stated last night that the vessel had put into the bay to make some adjustments to her machinery. The. trouble was not serious.

The odds soared to-day as Joe Louis and John Henry Lewis completed their training for Wednesday's title bout. Louis is now a 10 to 1 favourite. The betting is practically confined to a knockout: basis. Even money is offered that Lewis will be knocked out in four round?,