RELIEF WORKS PAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17957, 8 December 1932, Page 6

RELIEF WORKS PAY

HOLIDAY CONCESSIONS STATEMENT BY MINISTEE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. In the House of Representatives today, replying to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. 11. E. Holland, who asked whether men in relief camps under the supervision of the Public Works Department would receive payment during the Christmas period, the Rt. Hon. J. G ; Coates said that men in the Public Works Department’s single men’s camps would be granted a fortnight’s holiday on pay this Christmas, and the Unemployment Board had also agreed to pay half the cost of the return fares to their home town, or to the town from which they were engaged, whichever was the nearer. These men would receive holiday pa(' of 10s a week before leaving camp. Those who did not wish to travel would be allowed to receive 10s a week and keep without being required to work.

Itelief workers under the department who worked full time either at the rate of 10s a day or on the co-operative contract based on that wage, said the Minister, were not being granted any holidays on pay, bat, as in previous years, they would have the option of taking their usual vacation without pay, or remaining at work. Workmen employed by the department mder the Mo. 5 scheme, continued Mr. Coates, were to be granted a fortnight’s holiday on pay on the same conditions is men employed by local bodies under this scheme.

The ordinary standard worker employ'd. said the Minister, would receive the sual treatment, namely, payment for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day, if he had over two months and less than two years’ (continuous service. If he had over two years’ service he would receive payment for these three statutory holidays, and, in addition, 12 days' annual leave. Replying to a further question by Mr Holland, the Hon. A. Hamilton said thit the Unemployment Board had arranged to pay half return fares to their home towns or to the towns from which they were recruited in the cases of men employed in relief camps.