RAILWAY SERVANTS' WAGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 60

RAILWAY SERVANTS' WAGES.

THE PROMISED INCREASE. WELLINGTON, January 15_

At a meeting of Cabinet on Saturday the Government decided to pay the members of the second division of the railway service a minimum wage of 9s per day. This affects in the traffic branch 900 porters, 12 watchmen, and 44 crossingkeepers, in the locomotive branch 350 labourers, and in the maintenance brancii 1900 surfacemen and labourers. In addi. tion a further sum of £15,000 was authorised to men in receipt of 9s and over whose duties are of a more important nature, and who are at present only in receipt of a slight advance on the pay of the men at 8s and 8s 6d. The rates of wages to workmen on railway construction works and engaged in the* Public Works Department have also been increased to 9s per day. In his last Budget statement to the House, Sir Joseph Ward, Minister of Einance, said : —" Proposals have been submitted to the House for amendments to the Government Railways Act. This will provide for increases of pay to certain sections of railway workers (permanent and casual), and involve an expenditure of about £60,000 over and above the amount required to provide for the scale increases accruing under the act. In the ordinary course these scale increases approximate £35.000, and, taken in conjunction with the amount stated above, the gross increase will be £95,000. The

alteration in respect to casuals will be in the direction of a minimum payment at the rate of Is per hour, equivalent to 9s per day of -eight hours. In keeping within the recent general improvement of pay in the Poet and Telegraph Department, it is proposed to increase the mini, mum wage of day wages men from Is to Is ljd per hour, equal to 9s per day of eight hours. Certain of these increases have already been granted. Assuming that the bulk of the second division of Ihe railway men are already in receipt of the marriage allowance, it is calculated on the basis of the second paragraph, quoted above, that the extra amount required to be paid as a result of the determination of the Government already mentioned will be roughly £40,000 per annum. For some considerable time representations have been mads to the Government by the men concerned to the effect that it was onlv fair that their wages should be increased, in view of the general advance in the cost of living. It has been suggested at times that some men in private employment were even in a better condition, financially speaking, than those employed by the State. The increases referred to above will take place as from Ist January of this vear.