THE BASIC WAGE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3829, 4 November 1936, Page 4

THE BASIC WAGE

WELLINGTON LABOUR DISAPPOINTED. Keen disappointment with the basic wage rates fixed by the Court of Arbitration is manifest in the Labour movement. Inquiries at the Wellington Trades Hall on Tuesday and at other trades union offices disclosed that the decision of the Court came as an unpleasant shock to the workers. Even the most conservative men in Labour circles expected the rate to be not less than £4 for men and £2 for women. The more optimistic had placed the wages at £4 10s to £2 7s 6d respectively. One prominent secretary expressed the opinion that, while, the Court had no doubt arrived at a mathematically accurate interpretation of the economy of the Dominion in cold figures it had overlooked the intention of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, 1936, to provide a reasonable wage, for a married man with three children. Surprise was expressed by several officials that the dissenting opinion of the employees’ representative on the Court, Mr A. L. Monteith, suggested rates only Is 6d higher for men and 3s higher for women than those specified by the majority and rulingopinion of the Court. A number of secretaries at .the Trades Hall have already met to consider a protest to the Government. What form it will take has not yet been determined, but it is understood a deputation is to be organised with the object of making representations to the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, and the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. INTENTION OF LEGISLATURE. “The judgment is against the intention of the Legislature,” said Mr J. Robinson, who was the workers’ advocate at Wellington during the hearing of the basic wage argument, in an interview at Dunedin. The minimum wage fixed by the Court in 1925 as a living wage for a man, his wife and two children, he said, was Is lOd hourly, which for a 44 hour week meant £4 0s Bd. If it took that in 1925 how could a worker maintain his wife and three children in this period of rising prices on £3 16s? Mr Robinson considered that the only bright feature in the judgment was that wages were fixed on a weekly basis instead of hourly, as sought by the employers.