WAGE MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 2937, 14 March 1922, Page 5

WAGE MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN.

COMPARED WITH COST OF LIVING.

“During the last 12 months (.writes Air B. 15. Slithers in the London Clarion) the wage-earners . have suffered reductions amounting to seven or eight million pounds a week, at the rate of three hundred and fifty to four hundred millions per year. It is true that prices have fallen at the same time, but the fa.ll in wages in many industries has been much greater than the fall in the cost of living. Wages in several eases are down to the 1914 level and even below it. while prices are still 99 per cent, higher. With a total production of wealth perhaps 40 per cent, less than in pre-war days, wages were bound to fall. We cannot get out of pint pots. Wages are in theory that jii'-u share of the total product contributed by the labour of the individual, and if from whatever cause the individual’s production is reduced, liis wage's should fall proportionatol y. ”

Demands for the reduction of the rate of remuneration of labour still continue, but in certain cases recently have taken the form of proposals to increase the working hours instead

of decrease the actual wages paid. Workers in the ruber trade were aekcd to agree to an increase of hours from 47 to 52J ]>er week. They resisted the demand, and it was finally agreed that, the hours should be increased to 4S per week and wages reduced by per cent.