ROADING SUBSIDIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19127, 23 September 1936, Page 5

ROADING SUBSIDIES

BASIS OF PAYMENTS MR. HULTQUIST'S INQUIRY (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. In a recent letter to the Minister of Public Works, Mr. A. G. Hultquist, member for the Bay of Plenty electorate, pointed out certain matters on which uncertainty seemed to exist among locai bodies engaged in reading and other works which were subject, to subsidy by the Public Works Department. The following reply has been received from the lion. R. Semple : "I have made inquiries since receiving vour letter, and find that local bodies throughout New "Zealand have been notiRed through the district engineers that the rates of wages payable to public works employees, as from June 1 last, will be admitted in claims by local authorities for subsidies payable by the Public Works Department, including the Main Highways Board.

"If a local authority is paying its employees less than the departmental rates, subsidy will be assessed on the amount actually paid, but if the local body is paying its employees wages in excess of the departmental rates, subsidy will be based on the. latter.

"Moreover,'the departmental rates are based on a 40-hour week, and if employees of a local authority are paid for 44 or 48 hours per week, the standard departmental rate for a 40-hour week will be the maximum weekly amount on which subsidies will be paid. "For example, the departmental standard for a* 40-ii Our week may be £4, based on 16s per day, while a local body might be paying £4 10s for a 48-hour week, based on 16s per day. In that case subsidy will be payable only on £4 per week " COOK COUNTY INCREASE PUBLIC WORKS RATES Roadmen employed by the Cook County Council were informed to-day of their increase in wages to the public works standard of 2s per hour as from September 1. Under the new conditions, the men will work a 40-hour week, against a 44-hour >veek up to the present, and although the daily earnings will be 2s 10d a day more, the total earnings for the whole week will show only an increase of Is over the old rates.

Up to the' present the men have been paid Is 7fd an hour for an eight-hour day, the daily earnings being 13s 2d for 54 days, the total for the week being £3 19s. On the basis of 2s an hour for an eight-hour day for five days a week, the wages will total £4 a week. The council lias agreed that if the roadmen are required to work on Saturday mornings as a result of weather conditions ordinary rates will be paid. The increased wages will be available from the next monthly payment.