Reply to Critics.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 23 July 1934, Page 6

Reply to Critics.

Sustenance.

Mr W. Bromley Issues Statement. 44 r jT'IIE OBJECT of this statement is not to justify the present rates as adequate . . . other than to say this, that from the present funds available it would not be possible to apply the maximum rates generally. . . This paragraph appears in a statement issued in Wellington on Saturday evening by Mr W. Bromley, deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board, who replies to recent complaints from Christchurch and other places regarding sustenance payments to relief workers. “It will assist the general public to understand the issue if this statement commences by giving one or two definitions of the terms really used in this controversy,” he said. “ Sustenance—meaning sustenance payments that are granted without requiring work to be performed, as provided for in section 20 of the Unemployment Act, 1930: B2 workers, meaning workers, registered as unemployed, who have been classified by a hospital board doctor as fit for light work only. Medical classification refers to the classes determined by the hospital boards' doctors as follows: Class A means workers who are 100 per cent physically fit; Class B 1 who are less than 100 per cent fit, but who are fit to do manual work under town or country conditions; B2 workers means workers who, because of some physical defect, are fit for light work only; C class means workers who on account of health conditions are unfit for work of any kind.

“ Section 20 of the 1930 Act sets out the maximum rates of sustenance payments which may be paid without work and limits the number of weekly payments in any one year to thirteen, unless extended by special authority of the Unemployment Board. The present rates of sustenance, fixed by the Unemployment Board, after considering all relevant factors, including the funds available, the relationship between sustenance payments and country wage rates, and the rates paid when work is performed under Scheme 5, are lower tnan the maximum rate as set out in Section 20 of the Act. 'they range in an application of a married man from 15s to 2os per week, plus Gaily rations of milk. Cases Cited. “ The object of this statement is not to justify the present rates as adequate, nor is the purpose to criticise tne maximum rate as set out in the Act, further than to say this, that from the present funds availaoie it would not be possible to apply tne maximum rates generally and to point out mat at to-day's wage levels in many cases tne relief payment system under section 20 would exceed the normal earnings of the applicant. The following illustrations will sc.ve to emphasise tnat point:

“ A particular city applicant for relief, w’ith twelve cnildren under sixteen years oi age, n granted sustenance relief under tne terms of section 2U would receive eacn week a casn paj'ment of £4 6s Od exempt irom tne wages tax, while should he secure employment at his usual calling and at award rates and be lortunate enough not to lose time through sickness or wet weather, his weekly wage would be £3 6s 6a, less wages tax, or £3 3s 4d net. This, of course, is the extreme case and in descrioing it I have taken no account of lamily allowance. To take a more typical case of the worker with lour children under sixteen years, if paid according to section 20 his weekly payment would be £2 14s 6d, plus family allowance, or £2 18s 6d net. If the same man were in employment in a Public Works camp in the country and earning the average wage of £3, less wages tax, £2 17s, he would be receiving Is 6d a week less for working than he would be paid at sustenance. “At the present time sustenance payments without work are made to three classes only: (1) Men who are over fifty years of age and have been on relief in the cities for twenty-six weeks and voluntarily go on to sustenance in lieu of accepting Scheme 5 employment. In these cases sustenance is voluntary. (2) Workers over 60 years of age whose wives are in receipt of an old age pension. This provision is now compulsory in the cities, except that it is open for the worker to apply for reconsideration in special cases. (3) B2 men, fit for light work only, and for whom suitable light work cannot be provided. In Operation Elsewhere. ” Workers in any of the above classes if placed on sustenance without work are at liberty to seek out private employment to supplement their sustenance earnings and may earn up to £1 a week regularly, without incurring any reduction in the sustenance payments. These conditions have been in operation for some time in Auckland and Wellington,, and it is worthy of note that recently the Onehunga relief workers, after taking a vote among themselves, elected to accept the sustenance rates without work rather than employment under Scheme 5. At the present time the board is not willing to offer these rates to secondary towns such as Ashburton, because if that were done no Scheme 5 work would fie possible in those places. “ This brings us to the real difficulty now being made a matter for protest in Christchurch. The local bodies in Christchurch are unable to provide suitable approved work for all the B2 men, and these men have been placed on sustenance on the same rates as apply to the physically fit men. Many of this number are so far below standard physically as to make it impossible for them to secure any kind of private employment to supplement their sustenance payments. It is in reference to these men that I stated, when in Christchurch, that discussions had been promoted with a view to the hospital boards rendering supplementary assistance. In these cases there appears ample justification for some help. The Unemployment Board has provided them with the same measure of allocation as it provides for physically fit men, and that practice for the present is not in question, although it is almost certain that in any further scheme of unemployment relief the applicant would have to be able as well as be willing to work. “ The immediate question, therefore, in this controversy is not whether the B2 men are a charge on the unemployment funds or on the hospital board funds, but whether from the unemployment funds there is to be a greater measure of relief for unfit men than is granted to fit men.”