SHORTER WORKING LIFE

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

SHORTER WORKING LIFE

RETIREMENT AT SIXTY

INCREASING EMPLOYMENT.

ROTARY CLUB’S PLAN.

Compulsory retirement on superannuation at 60 years of all men is urged by a committee of the Dunedin Rotary Club in a report called for by the last New Zealand Rotary Conference after it had heard an address by Mr. G. Lane, of Dunedin, suggesting action on such lines as a means of shortening working lives and thus increasing employment. In his address, Mr. Lane had suggested that as short working time reduced earning power, it would be better to shorten working lives. If upon attaining the age of 60 years a male .were compulsorily retired through the aid of a compulsory superannuation scheme, many openings for employment would be created. This superannuation fund could be financed by a compulsory 5 per cent levy on all wages and salaries from persons 20 years of age and over, 2| per cent of which could be contributed by the employer and the other 2J per cent by the individual.

STATE SCHEMES INCORPORATED. '

According to Mr. Lane’s scheme, the maximum benefit would be given to contributors over the full period of 40 years, benefits to be reduced pro rata in respect of periods short of 40 years. The scheme would be entirely free from Government interference and controlled by a full time board of five members, the chairman of which would be a Judge transferred from the Supreme Court, and two members representing employers’ interests and two the workers. All Government superannuation and pension schemes would be taken over by the board.

Mr. Lane added that no doubt a scheme such as this would be subject to a mixed reception from the elderly workers of the community, but, when viewed in the light that there is a younger generation to provide for, was it not preferable that a man should retire at 60 when he could have a hobby to which to devote his leisure hours, than to have the younger generation, which is at a very valuable and susceptible age, forming wasteful and destructive habits, and thus destroy for life all constructive efficient habits they might possess ?

COMMITTEE APPROVES IDEA.

In addition a man of 60, generally, would have been relieved of the responof providing for a family, and during his life he could formulate his plans to coincide with his retirement at 60. Even should he be unable to amass any wealth, he and his wife would be provided for by his superannuation. : | In giving general endorsement of Mr. Lane’s suggestion as a step in the right direction, the comnjittee’s reports says that several members were strongly of opinion that the only practical method of putting such a scheme into operation would be by some adoption of or cooperation with the existing National Provident Fund, and, as would be seen from the resolution which was finally brought down, whatever direction the discussion took, it finally came back to the practicability of a compulsory National Provident Fund. The result of subsequent discussions was embodied in the following resoultions:—

“(1) That provision be made whereby .members of private schemes may as of right obtain exemption from the proposed compulsory scheme, provided such private schemes are approved by a board. (2) That the benefits from the fund shall be in proportion to the scale of contributions. (3) Tire scheme shall provide that every male between the ages of 16 and 60 shall contribute such sum as i shall insure him receiving a pension of not less than 30s per week at the age of 60, provided that the contribution of a man who becomes a contributor at an age over 40 shall not be increased beyond that of a man at the age of 40.”

LEGISLATION DESIRED.

"As an outcome of these deliberations,” the report adds, “it became apparent that it was beyond the scope of the committee to evolve a definite scheme with its necessary regulations, and even had this been possible, it would probably have gone much further than public opinion would allow, or perhaps beyond the bounds of practicability from the all-important viewpoint of a statistician. Consequently, the following resolution was finally approved:—“That with a view of minimising unemployment, the Government be urged to consider the advisability of all employees retiring at not later than age sixty, and that in all cases where men have not made provision for their retirement by other adequate insurance schemes or otherwise, the Government institute a compulsory clause in the National Provident Fund Act, and it is suggested that in such cases the contribution should be based on a minimum pension of 30s per week.” The report has been circulated to Rotary Clubs, and the committee urges that the matter is of sufficient importance to be investigated without delay, and, if found to be both sound and practicable, which it believes it is, that immediate steps should be taken to have the whole question brought before Parliament with a view to having the necessary legislation put into operataion.