UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21985, 21 June 1933, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

THE BUILDING SUBSIDY EXTENSION OF THE SCHEME JOINERY WORK INCLUDED (Per United v Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 20. The Unemployment Board announces the extension of the building subsidy scheme to cover joinery work carried out in registered factories for use on jobs that have been approved for the subsidy. Details of the extension are:— 1. Classes of Joinery Affected. —Doois, door frames, window frames, window •ashes, frame panels, mantelpieces, stairC&B6SI — m — mi 2. Subsidy Additional to Wages.—-The •übsidy payable in respect of wages on a job will be paid to the owner carrying out the work in respect _to any or all the items of joinery itemised in the previous paragraph that are manuiactured in and supplied by a registered subsidy will.be 8 per cent, of the amount paid for joinery ex the factory, not including any cost of delivery. 4. Claims for the subsidy must be supported by invoices showing in detail the net factory cost, and the invoices must be supported by a certificate from the builder carrying out the work _ that the joinery upon which the subsidy is claimed has been received and used on an apP Commenting on this extension of the subsidy scheme, the Minister of Employment (Mr A. Hamilton) stated that strong representations had been made to the Unemployment Board alleging that if the subsidy on wages were confined to the labour employed on building sites it would result in the joinery work, which it usually done in factories, being performed on the site of the building m order to win the subsidy. Following an investigation made by the Unemployment Board it appeared that during the depression joinery factories had beeni suffering rather more than had been the case with general builders. The small working builder contractor, who in normal times, could secure sufficient work at prices that enabled him to make profits in excess of the wages paid to skilled tradesmen, was naturally content to buy all his joinery ready-made irom the factory, For some time past it had been difficult for this typo of ■ contractor to secure enough jobs to keep him going, and when he had succeeded in getting a job he found it more profitable to do as much of his own joinery work as possible, inis practice had been independent of any influence arising from the_ Unemployment Board's schemes, and with the general improvement in trade which should resuit from the No. 10 scheme, it might reasonably he expected to cease. J°* n ®ry factory proprietors, however, felt that tne subsidies of wages given on buildings, Unless extended to cover joinery work done in factories, would result in an extension of this practice. rather than a diminution. The extension of the subsidy scheme should place joinery factories on a proper competitive basis with work performed on a building site.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

SUB-COMMITTEE’S INVESTIGA-

TIONS

A report on unemployment was submitted to the meeting of the council of the Chamber of Commerce on Monday night, and was considered in committee. The report, which was prepared by a subcommittee of the executive (Messrs P. O. Smellie, W. E. Earnshaw, and C. J. Darracott) was as follows: — • ' The following matters were referred to the sub-committee. The first arose out of' a deputation from the Unemployed Workers’ Movement, and the second out of the figures supplied by the Unemployment Board’s report to Parliament:—(l) Conditions under which unemployed relief is at present being administered. (2) To consider whether, the expenditure of unemployment funds in relief works of the nature at present in operation is ensuring the best possible returns. If hot, to consider alternative schemes or proposals to meet the economic crisis. The report continued:— . . , " The committee was able to obtain firsthand information. on the departmental, social, and economic phases of the matters referred ter it,, and records its thanks to those who appeared before it and supplied this information. , “We are o" opinion that the Unemployment Board's policy of relief works is being efficiently and sympathetically carried out in Dunedin by the departmental officers. Considerable credit .is due to the locale Unemployment Committee for its valuable voluntary services in applying the laid down by tbe board. ... " The complaints against the conditions made by the delegation from the Unemployed Workers’ Movement which waited on the executive fall under two headings—(a) The schedule of rates of pay laid down by the board as a maximum had been reduced to the extent of Is 3d, and sometimes 2s 6d a week by reducing the allocation of work, and that the margin of relief pay was already, so slender that.such small reductions made it impossible to make ends meet. (b) That the sending’of married men into camps was a hardship to the worker and to his wife, and likely to lead to lack of discipline amongst the families of the unemployed and to a loosening of morals. “ On the first point we find that the ' provision for relief is governed .by the weekly allocation of funds made in Wellington, which in turn is governed by the state of the board’s finance, and it is tbe hoard’s policy to husband its resources during the easier living conditions of the summer months against the rigour of While commending the wisdom of this policy, we consider that the fluctuation of the weekly allowance even to the extent of Is 3d or 2s 6d per week is a disturbing factor to a worker who is .just menacing by dint of frugal living to balance his domestic: budget, and that some assurance might be given by the .board a. to the minimum rates of reliet. ine following is a budget of expenditure sub mittJd by one of the deputation-a man with a wife and two ehiicireii, and a-half and six and a-halfyears Bent 10s; gaif and electric light, 2s, foal’4s 3d; Iread (three loaves), 2s 3d; 21b butter, Is 8d; meat, 2s 6d, flour is, sugar, 41b, Is; vegetables, 8(1; milk, Is 6d, naner. 9d; rice or sago, 6d; tea, Is 10a, notted meat, 8d; soap, etc., Is; half-dozen ?ggs, 7d; oatmeal, 6d; jam or syrup. 8d; —a total of f 1 13s 4d. , , “The rates of relief'pay fixed by the board as a maximum are as tollows; Single men —Number of daye per week, 2, total weekly relief, 15s. Married men without children—Number of days per wppk total weekly relief, £1 os. With one child under l6 ~ Nll^| se f r per week, 3; total weekly relief, £1 10s. With two children under 16 77 ]Su °]K r net week, 3*; total weekly relief, £1 15s P With three or more children under 16-1-Number of days per week, 4; total weekly relief, £2. These rates have been reduced by a s much in some weeks as 2s 6d by reducing the hours , wo , r i ‘ f “ There seems to be a good deal of misconception regarding the camps, and we mentmn the following points by way of removing some of these misconceptinns' (a) The camps are all under the -control of the Public Works Department, and from the information placed before us we are satisfied that the work of establishing and maintaining them is parried out in an efficient manner, de rived from long experience by the department’s staff in this class of work, and that everything Tna.]v«=» the as comfortable ae con ditiona will permit, (b) The regulation arrangement is one tent with wooden floor and frame, and fireplace, for two men. Each camp is provided with an overseer and a cook, and the food rations are ample and well-balanced. No complaints on any of these pomts could be found by tbe witness, who had spent four months in the 6makau irrigation works camp, with the exception that the supply of fresh vegetables was not gufficient. The standard, no doubt, varies from camp to camp, dependent •upon the zeal of the overseer in caring for the needs of the men and in the ouality of the cooking, and we are informed that such variations did occur, (c) The work in the camps is done on a bans, and the standard adopted

is 10s per day for married men and 10s a week for single men, who in- addition are provided for their keep, while the married men make their own arrangements, either cooking for themselves or going to the camp’s cook house. In one camp the outside contractor provides meals for 16s 6d a week, (d) The weekly wage varies according to the earning capacity of the different gangs. We were shown pay sheets for the camp jobs in hand over a period of several weeks, and these bear out the contention of the department that married men can earn on an average 10s per day. This average would be reduced during wet weather, although the stoppages through this cause are less than ia generally supposed. (e) Tf a married man wishes to take his wife and family be is permitted to do so, but has to provide the necessary camp accommodation himself. In the Omakau camp many ol the men have done this, but this camp because of its comparative permanence lends itself to this. In the other camps the works in hand are small and comparatively short lived, and it is impracticable for the men to take their families with them. . , ~ “The foregoing resume shows tne camps in their most favourable light, but there is no gainsaying the fact tnat camp life under even the best conditions i 9 dreaded by men who have always oeen accustomed to work in the cities, and not the least is the fear that they are cut off from all contacts with their old employment and have little chance of getting any work in their own particular line The work is all of the navvying type, and the living conditions are not much better than pioneering, and in inclement weather the discomforts are conman living under these conditions separate from his wife and children, cut off from all the social amenities of his old life, and doing work of an inferior kina to that to which he, has been trained and accustomed to, cannot be considered as fortunate, and it is only the severe stress of the economic crisis which could maice such a state of affairs tolerab e. “ We are of opinion that the transfer of a percentage of unemployed to repro ductive or semi-productive work in tne country is an inevitable feature of any national attempt to cope with the problem. This is not a new development in the economic structure, and it is a tact that before the depression some IffiOUlJ men were employed by the Public Wo Department in construction camps, it has always been the case that the labomei must seek out the sources of bis employ.ment and the separation of the breadwinner from his family is a feature that has and always will be common to many walks of life. JV , ~ • “ Wo consider, however, that the conditions of employment in public works camp* should be made more at ,!i rac V'X? city workers,, and we make the following suggestions:—(a) That a man being sent to the country should have his, fare paid out of the unemployment funds subject to his remaining for a specified minimum period, (k). That wherever practicable facilities should be provided at the camp for his wife and children, or failing such facilities that the worker should be given the opportunity of visiting his home for 10 days twice , a ./ e! V' and during the period of such visits be eiven the full sustenance allowance, ibe Unemployment Bo.ard should also pay the railway fare, each way conditional, ot course, on the man returning to the camp for a further /specified period. (e) iuat employers of labour requiring additional men should make it a point of procedure to recruit such men from the public works camps. The Labour Bureaux could do valuable work by acting as labour exchanges for this purpose, and by keeping a record of the qualifications of the men who have gone into the camps, (d) That the relief organisations in the city should Establish a special branch for dealing exclusively with the camp population, ihe old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind, seems to apply with full force to men who go into camps, and their need of physical comforts and social amenities is. much greater than their more sheltered fellows in the cities. , . “ (I) The second question arose out oi the Unemployment Board’s first annual report to the House of Representatives, and was in the following words:— “ f To consider whether the expenditure of unemployment funds in relief works of the nature at present in operation is ensuring the best possible returns. It not, to consider alternative schemes or proposals to meet the economic crisis. “ (2) The salient features of the Unemployment Board’s report are: ■ (a) That since the board’s inception on November 20, 1930. the sum of £2,642,513 has been spent on relief, (b) That for the year to March 31, 1932, the expenditure was £2,254,257. (c) That of this expenditure £1,396,653 was expended on non-repro-ductive work such as street maintenance, -parks, reserves, etc. —£820,268 was , expended on reproductive work; £37,346 was expended on administration. (d) ihat at September 30, 1932, the number of men employed on non-reproductive work was 31,250, or 62.4 per cent, i of the total. “ (3) The system of relief works as practised in the cities is, we consider, a failure. It is apparently regarded workers as merely a. test by which they are required to put in so much of • their time at a stated place to make them eligible for a relief allowance in the nature of sustenance. The work allotted is in many cases of a futile and entirely useless nature, and in very few cases can be classed as necessary work that is going to he of any permanent value. One of the defects in the system is that no capital moneys are provided for the purchase of materials to enable substantial works to he carried out. “ 4. The present system offers no hope for the artisan or skilled labourer. When a carpenter, or cabinetmaker, or engineer is thrown out of work he immediately falls to the same level as the unskilled tradesman and the unemployable.. He gets sustenance on the same principle as the least efficient of the unskilled labourers, but he is given no hope or prospect of going hack into his own trade again. This has a downward drag .on the best classes of labour. It may he mentioned that of the total unemployed registered at December 10 last.-the buildins, engineering, and other skilled trades accounted for 14,127, or 27 per cent, of the totsl “5. The alternatives are:—(l) To drp the system of relief work and substitute a straight-out sustenance allowance sufficient to keep the unemployed worker and his family just about the level of existence; or (2) to endeavour to create a demand for labour which will offer greater avenues of employment. , , . “6. We are of opinion that the time is ripe for the participation in and encouragement by the Government of .a policy of wise capital expenditure in works of a necessary and permanent nature, thus favouring the second of the alternatives. • ~. , “ 7. We base our case on—(1) The need for a stimulus to private expenditure of a capital nature. (2) The great necessity for making some effort to ease the chionxc state of unemployment which exists. “ 8 On the first point, the rising volume of private and bank time deposits speak only too eloquently of the low ebb to which the confidence and enterprise of investors has fallen. This is a natural trend during a period of falling prices and diminishing profits, and the lesson to he drawn from it is that the savings of the community are not being applied for capital developments in the way designed to be used. We believe the Government would give a valuable lead by entering upon a policy of capital works to be spread over two or three years. This would relieve unemployment, and result in a greater flow of money within the community which would he reflected in increasing turnovers in the wholesale and retail businesses, which would tend to create a feeling of confidence and an encouragement to enterprise. We consider that work which will provide employment for skilled tradesmen should be given first consideration, and the term productive,’ when applied to such works, should he used in its widest sense. "9 Our second point is that it is not sufficient for the Government mere y to provide sustenance for the unemployed and to leave the question of providing work to look after itself. We consider that a policy such as we have suggested should aim at providing work for a certain percentage of the skilled workers, and that other avenues of employment for unskilled workers could be provided in the country on the conditions outlined in the first part of our report; this policy should act as a stimulus to the expenditure of capital moneys by private enterprise, ihe better classes of labour will be given opportunities of finding work and the residue of low grade labour and unemployables will find its proper place at the bottom of the scale on sustenance or casual work. ' “ 10. We believe that a great deal ox work of a really useful nature could be provided in cleaning out and rebuilding some of the poorer class areas in our cities. One witness informed us that conditions in Dunedin were very bad in this respect. We do not profess to he able to express an opinion on this point, hut suggest this ia a matter which the

Institute of Architects and others interested in town-planning might take up with a view to having the public health restrictions in this respect made njore stringent. . . . ... “ if. We wish to stress in conclusion that in recommending a policy of capital expenditure by the Government we do not suggest any departure from the policy of the Associated Chambers of Commerce that r all such works should, wherever possible, be carried out by private contract’ also, ‘ that there should not be any lessening of the pressure for economies in public expenditure in accordance with the recommendations of the National -Expenditure Commission.’ “We do not consider that our recommendations are in conflict with either of these policies.” The council decided to adopt the report.

NELSON’S EFFORT

SUCCESSFUL QUEEN CARNIVAL,

(Per United Press Association.) NELSON, June 20. With the proceeds from the crowning ceremonies still to come in, Nelson s queen carnival efforts resulted in just on £IBOO being raised for the Mayor’s Unemployment Fund. , '

LOCAL ACTIVITIES WORK FOR TO-DAY Works Department.—Groups will commence at 8 a.m. to-day as follows: 301— Patmos avenue, at Pine Hill road junction. (Arrive at 8.30 a.m.). 302 — Malvern street, at old sawmill. 303 — The following men of group 303 at M'Gill’s farm, top of Montague street: W. H. Aitchison, J. L. Dunnet, M. Fox, J. A. Kewley, A. MacDonald. 303—The balance of group 303 at Signal Hill road, one mile and a-half above tram terminus. (Meet at M'Gregor street at 8 a.m.) . ' „ 305 Leith Valley road, quarter-mile above Patmos'avenue. , , 306 — Somerville street, at Abbotsford 1 307—Taieri road, at Helensburgh road. 309 — Ross Creek Reservoir. 310 — Melbourne street yard. 311— Portobello road, at bridge. 312 Elgin road, at Bernard street. 313 Preston crescent, at Haroourt street. 314 — Clifford street. 318 —Clifford street. ■ 321 — Somerville street, at Abbotsford road. 322 Sligo terrace, at Erin street. 325 — Leckhampton court, at Forfar street. 326 Eglinton road, at Macnee street. 328 —Reilly’s farm, Signal Hill road, six chains above M'Gregor street. 338—Eglinton road, at Macnee street. 534 —Water of Leith, between Leith street and Union street. D.C.C. Reserves Department. —Groups will report for work to-day as under:— 333, 512, 710—At Opoho Football Ground, at 8 a.m. 909 —At the Stadium, at 12.30 p.m. 511, 704 —At Mornington Football Ground, at 8 a.m. 383 —At Rest Home, Roslyn, at 8 a.m. TO REPORT AT LABOUR BUREAU. Every man in the following groups must report at the Labour Bureau to-morrow, Any man failing to do so will be struck off his group, and will not receive further relief unless and until it is again granted to him by the Labour Bureau: — Groups 304, 316, 317, 337, 344, 343. ROSLYN DEPOT The committee of the Roslyn Relief Depot (No. 8) gratefully acknowledges receipt of parcels from the following tradespeople:—Arrait and Co. 60, Butterfield 3, Goodley and Sons 51, Hislop 8, Hunter 8, Kingston 11, Laurenson and Son 21, Mitchell’s 5, M'Dowell 2, M'Farlane and Co. 4, Mackay Bros. 79, M“Kinlay 2, Miss Robertson 1, Shirley 17, Wardell’s 2; also five cases of fruit from Mir A. Davidson (Alexandra): 10 cases.of fruit from Mr J. Bennetts (Roxburgh); vegetables from Dr Falconer and the KaiEorai School, and apples from Mr O. Garrick. SUBURBAN RELIEF ALLOCATIONS In reply to a request for increased suburban allocations for relief, the Mayor of West Harbour (Mr T. |T. Harridge) has been advised by the Minister of Employment (Mr A. Hamilthp) that an increase could not he granted at the present time. Regarding the local bodies’ request to meet him when he next visited Dunedin, he advised that he_ would be down here to meet representatives at the end of the month or the first week in July.