WET WEATHER WORK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22544, 11 April 1935, Page 10

WET WEATHER WORK

ARRANGEMENTS FOR UNEMPLOYED REVIEW OF SYSTEM SOUGHT A request that the present arrangements regarding work by the unemployed on wet days should be reviewed was made by a deputation which waited on the City Council at its fortnightly meeting last night. The speakers asked the council to depart from the present policy under which Dunedin, they claimed, lagged behind the other centres of the Dominion in respect to the treatment of unemployment, and urged that the city should once more take the lead in the framing of social legislation. Mr G. Geddes asked that the arrangements regarding work on wet days should be reviewed. As an instance of the inconvenience that was created, by the present system, the speaker said that on March 26, which was a wet day, the day was declared wet from the Town Hall at 9 a.m., and the men went back to their homes. They had to report back to their job at 12.30 p.m. At 1.15 p.m. it was declared wet for the day. He asked the council to consider the plight of the men under such conditions. A number of them had only the clothes in which they stood, and when these became wet their plight was indeed uncomfortable. The moral aspect had also to be considered, and he claimed that the Government and the Unemployment Board had been guilty of intellectual suicide so far as the moral aspect was concerned. The speaker further claimed that the cities of the Dominion were sorted into different classes. In Wellington, where the Government did not want the unemployed collecting round the Houses of Parliament, conditions were better than anywhere else. He understood that there when it was wet, it was declared wet for the day, and that the ganger had the power to send the men home. In Christchurch the men reported at a central bureau, and there it was declared wet or fine for the day. Dunedin, he said, had been quiet ever since the last riots, and the Government and the Unemployment Board were taking advantage of this and “ putting it over ” the unemployed. The council had two alternatives before it. They could consider the matter from the moral standpoint or they could have the unemployed organised and hanging round the streets making demonstrations of protest. He reminded the council that after the dcmonstrations outside Warden’s between 800 and 900 parcels we.e handed out that night, although previously it had been said that nothing further could bo done for the unemployed. The council was the guardian of the people of the city, and it was its duty to do something for the unemployed apart from the Unemployment Board. Was it desirable that Dunedin should lag behind the other centres of the Dominion? “ Can you not get together,” the speaker asked. " and have it said that Dunedin is giving the other cities a lead in social legislation, and that where Dunedin leads the other cities will some day follow ? ” Mr A. M’Clurc asked that on a wet day the day should be declared wet and declared so from some central point of the city, so that the men would not have to go out to the various parts of the city before the day was declared wet. The speaker said the unemployed did not have the physical resistance to disease possessed by men in employment and well fed, and the risk of catching cold was more serious for them. A request was also made that the council should replace the present box in which the men working at Whare Flat were compelled to leave their gear and blankets over the week-end. This box was at present broken and without a proper lock, and the speaker asked that a dry place for the men’s belongings should be provided. The Mayor, in reply, said that this last request could easily be agreed to. Regarding the wet weather arrangements, he stated that the city had already made representations to the Unemployment Board in this connection. If their request were unsuccessful the council would continue to protest. He could nor let the comparison with other cities go unchallenged, and pointed out that In Auckland, in which Mr Geddes had said the unemployed were receiving the best treatment in the Dominion, the city authorities were employing only 500 out of a total of 1300 at standard rates for the number of days on which the men worked. The other 800 were placed on sustenance. The Mayor said he took it that the council would continue to make representations to the board x'egarding wet weather arrangements, and if the present representations were not successful would take further action. Members: Aye. The members of the deputation then withdrew.