Taxing Workers.
Dear Sir,—Your correspondent who questioned my criticism of the builders’ agreement fails to realise that those who had to pay the £1 a day or 22s a day for carpenters were, in a majority of the cases, paying more than they could afford and more than the labour was worth, and, as a result, many have lost the houses or homes they had built. The highest award was 2s 4d an hour, but contractors would in many cases pay more to attract the more expert and quicker workers. They will always do that. The cost of living is now 25 per cent lower than it was when high prices were ruling. That 25 per cent should have beqn considered when the agreement was made. If it had been the agreement would have been Is 9d an hour. Nobody has ever been able to fix a living wage, and if your correspondent is earning £3 10s a week he is doing better than thousands of other tradesmen, business people and other workers. The present arrangement of taxing workers to pay tradesmen award wages is disgraceful, and it cannot continue for long.—l am, etc, _____ TIM.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19330112.2.95.2
Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 659, 12 January 1933, Page 8
Word Count
195Taxing Workers. Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 659, 12 January 1933, Page 8
Using This Item
Star Media Company Ltd is the copyright owner for the Star (Christchurch). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Star Media. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in