EARNINGS OF WORKERS

Southland Times, Issue 25794, 4 October 1945, Page 4

EARNINGS OF WORKERS

END OF WAR BRINGS REDUCTIONS

(Special) WELLINGTON, October 3. One of the immediate effects of the ending of the war has been a reduction of overtime, with a consequent lessening of the high scale of earnings of workers engaged in many branches of industry. Wartime contracts having ended, there is not the same necessity in many industries for overtime to be worked, and in some cases the work that women were doing is no longer required of I them. Women in men’s jobs for the duration of the war are beginning to face the necessity of finding other employment or returning to their homes, and family incomes in consequence have been, or will be substantially cut. “The change-over from wartime to peacetme production has already meant reduced wages for the workers,” said the secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Federation, Mr T. Hill, commenting yesterday on the I workers’ position since the war ended. “The working week is now 40 hours, though workers have been averaging 50 hours in order to earn sufficient to live. “Now we are faced with reduced hours, and that means reduced wages. Who will agree that £5/5/- a week is sufficient to maintain a family? And this will not be supplemented as it was during the war by the wife working either part-time or full time. The impact of reduced wages will be felt still further within the next few months.”

Workers throughout industry are gradually feeling the effect of the reduction and elimination of overtime payments. As one union secretary explained yesterday: “With costs as they are, workers have been finding it hard enough to balance their budgets, even with the addition of overtime money. Men’s incomes have been reduced by as much as 20 per cent., and some will be cut by more than that.”