GOVERNMENT CANNOT EMPLOY ALL RELIEF WORKERS PERMANENTLY

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18935, 4 December 1929, Page 7

GOVERNMENT CANNOT EMPLOY ALL RELIEF WORKERS PERMANENTLY

i Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, December 3. A definite statement that it was impossible to employ permanently all men employed on railway construction work was made by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon E. A. Ransom, to a deputation representing the New Zealand Workers’ Union! He told Mr Cook, the secretary, that if the Government's liands were forced there would be no alternative but to dismiss men, and the onus must be on Mr Cook himself. The Minister denied that any instructions had gone out that any standard works should be brought down to the standard of relief works. It was only the promise of the Government to find work for everybody that led to placing relief workers in railway camps. “ Apparently,” said Mr Ransom, anI swering one of Mr Cook’s questions,

“ you are more concerned about holidays and so on than about finding men work. It seems to me that once a man is placed on relief works he sets about to make it a standard job and stick there.” If it was found possible to retain men they would be made standard employees, but if it was not they would have to be found work elsewhere or else discharged.