CHRISTCHURCH COUNCIL.

NZ Truth, Issue 253, 30 April 1910, Page 8

CHRISTCHURCH COUNCIL.

How it Treats its Employes.

A public body should set a good example to the rest of the community' lay giving its employes enough to live upon. It should be a pattern for the private employer who has a predilection for sweating and is not even restrained by the awards of the Arbitration Court. But m Christchurch there is a miserable City Council, \vhi6h m most things seems to be run by Dobson, its surveyor, whose cheeseparing policy is an admirable thing for fat and comfortable property holders, but is a very different matter for the unhappy Council workmen. When the unskilled laborers cited a case before the Arbitration Court, the / Council was payitg its men 8s for a day of eight hours, and also paid them for such holidays as New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labor Day, Show Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. This was considered satisfactory, and when application was made for exemption by the persistent Dobsou/ the City Council workmen and other Borough Council worlcmen were permitted to work 48 hours per jweek at not less than Is an. hour. When the gentSenian. who collects the rent and tradesmen are satisfied, the average working man who has kept his cradle full has no money to spend on motor cars or trips to Rotorua, and the struggle with the wolf wears a hole m the doorstep. Consequently, when the unofficial Dobson snorted and the Council eagerly cut the workmen's hours down to 4.4 per week, docked the wages for holidays, and failed to find work for permanent hands on wet days, it made a difference of nearly £20 a year to the men, which is the difference between solvency and the debtor's court. There seems to be.nasatisfactory reason for the unfortunate change excepting that two or three men demanded double screw on Christmas Day, besides the 8s already allowed.. The General ' Laborers' Union took , the matter up, and the Council employes nominated a deputation to wait .upon the City Council, with the object of suggesting an arrangement, for the improvement of the present starvation conditions. Then the Council snorted. It refused absolutely to. see the deputation, and from the discussion it would appear that a majority of the . snorting bumbles believed that the Labor person should, be kept m his place. It was decided that the Council would be pleased to meet a deputation of its own employes and. discuss matters, whereupon Tommy. Taylor, M.P., wrote a hasty note mentioning that the deputation -which the Council refused to receive had been appointed by the Council's employes, but the Council, having stood on its miserable, dig., waved the subject aside. What sort of a chance would Council employes have of retaining their jobs if they formed the deputation? These poor beggars have wives and families, and it is not lik:ely they would go 1 and reproach their tin-pot little bosses with their awful meanness and incapacity. Your deputationist is a marked man, a dangerous agitator who should be given the bag on the earliest opportunity. There appear to be one or two men m" the Council above parochialism and the sweating faculty; otherwise the local body ought to be well boiled and hung out to dry on the clothes line of obscurity. With regard to Dobson, it is a notable fact that he draws his screw, wet or fine, and is paid for holidays, and doesn't have to dodge the rent collector when" he leaves by the front gate. Meantime, Christchurch City Council goes to bed contentedly, undisturbed by the wail of the underfed children of its worKmen.