COUNCIL UP IN ARMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 510, 13 November 1928, Page 22

COUNCIL UP IN ARMS

WAGE REDUCTION DENIED CANDIDATE CORRECTED Immediate denials that it had decreased the wages of its workmen to 9s and 12s a day were made by the Otamatea County Council when it heard that such an assertion had been made by a Parliamentary candidate in Auckland. This morning Mr. A. Harris, the Reform candidate for Waitemata, received this telegram from Mr. E. G. Aickin, clerk to the council: “Please correct statement by Mr. Osborne at Narrow Neck. This county has not reduced or considered reducing its wages. The minimum wage is 14s, and the maximum 205.” At a meeting at Narrow Neck on Saturday evening Mr. A. G. Osborne, the Labour candidate for Waitemata, said that it was significant that surfacemen on the Otamatea Council had recently had their wages reduced from 14s to 12s. If Reform were returned, he expected a wholesale reduction in wages. The Labour Party feared that the rates of pay offering for relief works were but the thin end of the wedge. "And who do you think is chairman of the Otamatea Council?” he asked. A Voice: Rodney Coates. Mr. Osborne: Quite right, my friend. The chairman of the council is a brother of the Prime Minister. The chairman is emphatic that since the wartime increase the council has not paid less than the minimum of 14s a day.