PAY AND CONDITIONS

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15027, 22 March 1919, Page 5

PAY AND CONDITIONS

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association

and Reuter.)

(Received March 21, 11.30 p.m.)

London, March 21,

The Press Bureau has issued a Board of Trade announcement that the average earnings of railwaymen in 1913 was 28s 6d weekly. Additions since February, 1915, totalled 33s weekly. The increased cost of operating railways due to war wages and an eight-hour day wjas seventy-five millions annually, plus twenty-five millions increase in cost of materials. It is estimated that the cost of the new programme of the railwaymen's unions, including the perpetration of war wages, will be at least one hundred millions annually, or 200 per cent over pre-war rates T)\e Government's offer, when negotiations were resumed yesterday afternoon, included the establishment of a joint committee representing the railway companies' executive and the men's unions to deal -with questions of pay and conditions of service as they arise. The Government's offer assures railwaymen of a continuance of their present earnings during the current year, instead of their having ;to , face a gradual reduction of war wages as the cost of living falls. The offer will necessitate an increase of railway rates, but it is hoped that any further great increase in passenger fares will be unnecessary.