BURDEN TOO GREAT

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11293, 19 August 1922, Page 6

BURDEN TOO GREAT

RESULT OF BASIC WACE BACHELORS HAVE UNFAIR AD. VANTAGE. EMPLOYERS’ VIEWS. By Telegraph—Press Assn. — Copyright. Australian aiul N-Z. Cablo Association BRISBANE, August IS The conference of tho Australian Em. plovers’ Council was addressed by Mr William Brooks, of Sydney, on the basic wage. He said tho income paid in wages throughout the Coition - wealth, as a direct result of the assumed increase in maintaining the worker, his wife and dependent children, showed an increase between tho years 1914-20 of £100,000,000 per annum. Of this, £40,000,000 was paid to unmarried adult males and a further £12,000,000 to married adults without children. This proved that not only had the wages of these workers been unwarrantably inflated, but that an unwarrantable burden had been placed on tho shoulders of men with large families. He urged the need of basing the living wage upon the cost of maintaining a husband and wife only, with additional provision according to the number or dependent children. Tho conference adopted resolutions in favour of fixing the basic wage along tho above lines instead of the present two-children standard, condemning the reduction from the 48 to tho 44-hour week, favouring an amendment of the Arbitration Act restricting its functions to specified industries, and providing for a declaration of the basio wage for periods not exceeding six months.