COMPARISON NOT FAVOURABLE

Southland Times, Issue 22991, 10 September 1936, Page 5

COMPARISON NOT FAVOURABLE

PUBLIC WORKS AND AGRICULTURE

TERMS OF AGREEMENT QUOTED

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, September 9. The unfavourable position of a farm worker, when his wages and conditions were compared with those provided for men on public works, was stressed by Mr C. A. Wilkinson (Ind., Egmont) during the second reading debate on the Agricultural Workers’ Bill in the House of Representatives to-day. Reference was made by Mr Wilkinson to a statement by Mr W. J. Poison (Nat., Stratford) that a farm worker would be on as good a footing as a man on public works, because for the latter class employment was intermittent. Mr Wilkinson said that that was not quite the position. Public works today were steady and continuous, and a farm worker was no better off for stability than a public works employee. The wages earned by men on public works would be infinitely better than any which a man could earn on a dairy farm. Under the Public Works Agreement said Mr Wilkinson, the Minister - of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) would pay 8/6 a day for the hire of one horse. The Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) had placed the value of the best farm labourer on the same level as Mr Semple’s valuation of a horse. A farmer had to pay wages out of his earnings, but a public works employee was paid out of borrowed money or taxation, a share of which was contributed by the farmer himself. Differential Payments. Detailed comparisons between the wages and conditions provided for in the Public Works Agreement and those stipulated for farm workers were made by Mr Wilkinson. A farm worker was asked to work seven days a week for lOd an hour, while workers on public works would work five days a week for £4. Under the Public Works Agreement a fencer was to receive 17/6 a day. A farm hand who spent a day erecting a fence would be paid at the rate of about 8/6 t. day. A man on public works was to have gum boots supplied to him, if they were required, but no such concession was to be extended to the farm labourer. Mr Wilkinson said that everything had been inserted in the Public Works Agreement to safeguard the worker. If a man handled cement for an hour a day he was to be paid extra, but a farm worker could handle cement all day and get nothing extra. The Public Works Agreement set a standard that no one in the country could follow. The Bill was a confession that the Government was in difficulties in attempting to deal with farm labour. The Government would never have dared to have acted with any other industry in the way it had with the workers.