USE OF CAMPS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 18, 22 January 1935, Page 8

USE OF CAMPS

WORK FOR MARRIED MEN UNEMPLOYED UNION OBJECTS BOARD’S POLICY CRITICISED ( Per Press Association. 1 WELLINGTON. Jan. 21. A statement issued by the National Union of Unemployed says that a matter of grave public moment is the Unemployment Board’s determination to compel married men to accept the Public Works Department’s camp work at what the administration described as “standard wages,” namely 10s per day, less time Jost through wet weather, The statement says: “The board has commenced to enforce this policy at Chai, Southland, where 30 men have been deprived of work near their homes and ordered to proceed to a Public. Works camp job 40 miles distant. These men have refused to recognise the right of the Government to compulsorily draft, men away from their families except in a grave national emergency.

“The executive of the National Union has been endeavouring, with the Government and Unemployment Board, to secure the abandonment of this policy. Air W. Bromley, deputy-chair-man of the board, had stated, that if unemployed men refused to accept this work they would be debarred from further relief. When requested to offer camp work to single men at the same rate and 'conditions he declined, stating that if the Public Works Department decided to accept single men for work the board would reduce the subsidy on wages to the lower level compatible with the lower single men’s rate. The National Union contends that in insisting on married men accepting this camp work against their will, the board is endeavouring to establish the evil principle of compulsion in the relationship of employer to employee. The work would be directly beneficial to prop-erty-owners in localities to be improved and they were quite capable of bearing a portion of the Cost, which would ensure the payment of a living wage to the labourer.”