PILING UP THE COSTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 12

PILING UP THE COSTS

An example of the way in which costs pile up against the farming industry is given by the award covering employees in wool, grain, hides and manure stores, which has just befcn issued. The occupation is consequential on primary industry, and should have been included in those to which the 40-hour week has been judged unsuitable. Wool, grain and hides are likely to be awaiting receipt in store six days in the week. On these grounds the employers last year agreed to an increase of 10 per cent on the 1931 rates for a 44-hour week, those hours being retained. Thus the wages were increased from £4 5s to £4 14s. The Court has now made the figure £4 12s 6d for 40 hours, four hours' work on Saturday morning being permissible at the ordinary rate. Thus for the 44-hour week, for which £4 5s was paid in 1931, the wages will now be £5 Is 9d. This amounts to an increase of 20 per cent on the 1931 rate, the greater part of it being made in the name of the 40-hour week, not really of higher wages. To put it another way, the employees covered by this award have in effect been given a 10 per cent increase on the 1931 scale twice over. If this is to be the procedure when awards come up for renewal, it will not be long before tho levels have reached dizzy heights. The most serious part of it is that the increases must come out of the returns the farmer receives for his produce. There is no other ultimate source. If his reward for his labour were increasing at a commensurate rate, it might not matter. It is doing nothing of the kind. Meantime his costs are piling up in a hundred ways, of which the one quoted is only a single instance.