CLAIM MADE FOR HIGHER WAGES

Southland Times, Issue 24180, 17 July 1940, Page 7

CLAIM MADE FOR HIGHER WAGES

DEMANDS BY TRADE UNIONS PASSING OF WAR BURDEN TO OTHER SECTIONS ./ (Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, July 16. Demands by trade unions for increases in wages to compensate for the increased cost of living were causing him considerable uneasiness, said Mr W. W. Mulholland in his presidential address at the Dominion Conference of the Farmers’ Union today. He said that these demands, if granted, would merely transfer the war burden to other sections of the community and he urged that the trade unions would make a real contribution to the war effort by sacrificing the 40-hour week. “In defending increases granted recently by the Court, union secretaries have put up cases which are almost identical with those on which the dairy farmer can support a request for an increased price,” he said. “But with the dairy farmer the case is much stronger in that, as well as the increase in the cost of living, and the increases in the cost of production, which he can also claim, he was not given the amount which his Arbitration Court adjudged that he was entitled to in 1938. But, if we follow this vicious practice of each one individually asking for more, the net result must be serious inflation, and inflation always hits hardest the man who has nothing but his labour to sell.” APPEAL TO UNIONS As New Zealand was using a big proportion of its production for war purposes, and as the production had not increased sufficiently to make up for the abstraction of the quantity of goods so used, it was physically impossible to have the same amount of goods

for personal use as in the recent past. They just simply were not there. The folly of increasing money wages and other returns in such circumstances should be clearly recognized. “I would urge on trade union leaders to revise their policy, recognizing that its continuance would do great disservice, first of all to their members, and also to all their fellow citizens, by what is in reality an endeavour to obtain immunity for themselves from the burden of the war which all should share as equitably as possible,” Mr Mulholland said. “The present crisis offers a great opportunity to labour leaders in New Zealand to show that they have the breadth of vision, ability and common sense to take their place as national leaders.

“One obvious way by which real wages can be increased without throwing an additional burden on fellow citizens is by working longer hours and producing more goods and services. Labour leaders are inclined to look upon the 40-houf week as a great privilege which they have won. I doubt whether the ordinary worker values the 40-hour week nearly so greatly as the leaders imagine. Anyhow, a privilege which denies to those who need them goods and services which they desire is surely not rightly regarded as a valuable privilege at all. I think the great majority of people would willingly sacrifice this doubtful privilege for a little more of this world’s goods.”