AN INCREASE IN WAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1930, Page 8

AN INCREASE IN WAGES.

The announcement that the Arbitration Court had seen fit to increase the wages of certain workers under the electrical workers’ award for the northern district must have startled most people. Linesmen and ’incismen’is assistants in the northern district are to receive an addition of one half-penny an hour in order that their rates'may reach the level of the Otago award made by the Court fourteen months ago. This is the decision of the Judge and the. representative of the workers’ unions, the employers’ member of the Court very naturally dissenting from this very remarkable judgment. .His reasoning on the matter is sound and impressive. As he points out, the adoption of a higher rate means imposing added cost on an essential service. If ever there was a period in the history of this country when it was necessary to reduce costs this is that period; yet the Arbitration Court, apparently blind to the economic exigencies of the times, can bring itself to add to the burden that threatens to crush so many who struggle under it. Only three months ago the Court in one of its judgments, declared that “the minimum rate is not a matter of ethics., but' of practical possibilities.” To-day, however, it seems to disregard utterly the practical possibilities of an industry and to substitute for a sound principle a theory which can only have been dictated by false expediency. “The Court,” it declares in the latest judgment, “having fixed a standard, must apply that standard until it decides to alter it.” If that means anything it means that the Court is prepared to disregard practical possibilities and. say that because one section of workers in an industry is receiving excessive pay all the rest must have the same rates. It is pertinent to ask under what circumstances the Court could be induced to alter its standard. It seems to bo abundantly clear to everyone except t\s‘O members of the Arbitration Court and, of course, the men who make up the workers’ minds for them, that the standards fixed, by the Court when times were good must be reviewed now that conditions have changed. It happens that the industry with which the Court was concerned in making its award for linesmen is one of the most important in the country, electricity havino- become an essential service, and it is the cost of essentials that is pressing too hard on the farming community. Until wages are reduced cost cannot be brought to a level at which the country, will be able to pay its way. Industries whose employees are cheltered by awards are dependent upon the Arbitration Court for the readjustment that is so obviously necessary, but there seems to be little hope of the Court’s doing its share. The only remedy is faction by Parliament,- which must by means of legislation empower and. compel the Court to review its awards in the light of present-day conditions.