IMMEDIATE RISE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27389, 15 May 1950, Page 4

IMMEDIATE RISE

Wages And Pensions DEMAND AT PUBLIC MEETING PA CHRISTCHURCH, May 14. An immediate wage, salary and pension increase to restore the workers’ living standards to their 1938-39 level and the raising of the personal exemption from income tax to £450 a year, were demanded by a resolution passed at a public meeting today called by the Canterbury Provisional Council of the New Zealand Trade Union Congress. The Civic Theatre, where the meeting was held, was full to its capacity of 1300, and it was Announced during the meeting that there were about 1000 persons listening outside. The speakers included trades union officers, housewives, and two men who stood for Parliament at the last general election as Communists. Warm aplause’’greeted one speaker who suggested a se'ries of rolling strikes throughout New Zealand as a means of combating the Government, which, it was claimed, was attacking the workers’ conditions. “This meeting accuses the Holland Nationalist Government of making a deliberate attack on the living standards of the working people of New Zealand,” said a resolution which was passed with only a few dissentients. ’ “This savage attack is being driven home by the lifting of controls on houses and property sales, the lifting of subsidies on production, and the removal of price control, thus increasing in price every commodity and service required by the people for the maintenance of their standards. The purpose of this frontal attack on the people is to make easy their further exploitation, and to ensure that the working people. carry the full cost of military conscription in New Zealand. We will oppose this attack by every means. We demand (1) an immediate wage, salary and pension increase to bring back our standards to the 1938-39 levels; and (2) the raising of personal exemption from income tax to £450 per annum.” concluded the resolution.