THE UNION S.S. COMPANY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5907, 31 March 1894, Page 1

THE UNION S.S. COMPANY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—While I must confess that as a whole the statistics of Mr James Mills, managing director for the Union Steamship Co. "are worthy of reproduction," I cannot help noticing that the Union Company, like every other large employer of labor, from the Government down to the " sweating contractor," start curtailing expenditure by reducing the wage paid to the lowest-paid employee in their employment. Why this should be so I cannot understand. Mr Mills tells an interviewer of the Sydney Daily Telegraph that the monthly wages of sailors, firemen, trimmers, and others in the employ of his company had been reduced by Lt per month, but that the officers of the ships aud other large-paid servants have not yet been asked to accept a reduction. Now, this looks very well on the face of it, bub I ask would it nob be more in accordance with justice to ask, say, an officer receiving his LI2OO per annum to accept a reduction before reducing the pay of the hardly-worked and lower-paid employees of the company. I do not wish to imply that the Union Company are the only transgressors in this respect, for, as I have said, from the Government down employers generally are more or less affected with the same mania. Although the custom may be wise from a financial point, I can assure employers that employees accept it with no small amount of distrust, lam, etc., Stephen Borbham.