SHAREMILKERS’ LOT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5943, 15 May 1944, Page 2

SHAREMILKERS’ LOT

CRITICISM BY UNION SECRETARY

“The wealthier section of dairy farmers in New Zealand who employ sharemilkers to do the work on their farms are putting in their own pockets at the present .time about £1,000,000 which should go to the sharemilkers,” said the Hon. F. E Lark, M.L.C., branch secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, when addressing sharemilkers from Waikato, Te Puke, and Whakatane in Morrinsville. “No section of the community has tolerated unsatisfactory conditions as long as the sharemilkers, the method of payment for whose services is such that they become poorer the more they produced.” Continuing, Mr Lark said that exclusive of the 1.54 d payment for pigs, farmers should now receive 18.79 d per lb butterfat. Of this, 9.45 d should go to the sharemilker if he did the the work in connection with the milking and feeding of the herd. The extra 1.21 d for labour costs would be paid by the sharemilker, the farmer retaining a two-thirds share and paying nothing for wages. This meant that most sharemilkers would receive about GJd per lb for doing the work for which the Government allowed 9Jd per lb.

“As there are about 400,000 cows milked by sharemilkers in New Zealand,” Mr Lark said, “the wealthier farmers are receiving about £1,000,000, which is paid to them under the guaranteed price for work which the sharemilker does.”