RELIEF WORKERS

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 March 1934, Page 6

RELIEF WORKERS

CUT IN ALLOCATION. STATEMENT BY MAYOR. At a public meeting licit! on Ist February a strong protest was made against the action of the Unemployment Board in making a further reduction in the weekly relief allocation to Masterton. Persistent efforts have since been made by the Mayor (Mr T. Jordan) to obtain an explanation from the board, but these efforts have been unavailing. The board denies that any cut lias been made, though local relief workers are being paid up to 20 per cent less in a given time than they were getting up to the end of January. Mr Jordan is calling another . public meeting in the Municipal Social Hall on Tuesday evening next at 8 o’clock to go further into the matter.' The facts of the position to date were set forth by the Mayor in the following statement, which includes correspondence between Mr Jordan and Mr W. Bromley, a member of the Unemployment Board: —“After the meeting on Thursday, Ist February, Mr G.R. Sykes, M.P., made inquiries to see when we could get in touch with the Minister. On Saturday, 3rd February, I rang up Mr Bromley in Wellington and had a discussion with him. I told him there must have been a mistake and asked him to look into it. He offered £lO to provide an extra half-day (on relief work) for a number of men. I said that was not satisfactory to us. What we wanted was the amount we were entitled to. He promised to look into that. On that same day he (Mr Bromley) communicated with the local certifying officer inquiring about the actual numbers that he had returned for relief employment. I knew that a report was being sent from hero as a result of Mr Bromley’s ringing up on Saturday morning. I waited until Tuesday (Gth February) and then telegraphed Mr Bromley asking if he had cleared the matter up. In reply I icceived the following letter, dated 6th February:— “l am just in receipt of your telegram urging decision in regard to the matter you conversed with me over the ’phone a few days ago. I immediately ascertained that on the basis of computation from the board s office no reduction has recently been made in the Masterton allocation. On conversing with Mr Eddy, the certifying officer being absent, the same afternoon, it appeared that the difficulty had partially arisen due to the fact that a wrong return had been given, and partially due to a tightening up of the practice of returning men for allocation purposes for whom it is not intended to provide employment, Mas-* terton allocation, I also found, was on the same basis as New Plymouth, Hamilton, and towns of that size corresponding with Masterton. The hoard s officer is in communication with the certifying officer there with a view to adjusting that portion of the difficulty arising from failure to return the full number of unemployed, and that wnl be fixed. In reference to the other difficulty, it will be necessary for a report i to bq obtained before clarity on the subject can be obtained. (Signed) V\. Bromley,-.Board member. ’ “My reply, dated Bth February,’’ Mr Jordan continued, “was as foliows;__<‘ <1 have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6tli instant and note your-assertion that no reduction has recently been made in Masterton’s allocation “on the basis of computation from the board’s office. V . I do not know what this basis is, but I do know that the actual allocation of money to the unemployed men under No. '5 scheme here has been definitely and substantially reduced. The actual allocations now being made since the 29th ultimo to the three classes of unemployed arc approximately as follows:—A class, £1 17s per month; B class, £3 14s per month; C class, £5 11s per month. The allocations existing since some time prior to June of last year were as follows: —A class, £2 5s per month; B class, £4 12s 6d per month; C class, £0 10s per month. I have verified these figures, and I am at a loss to understand your statement that there has been no reduction. The figures are surely all at your disposal, both the allocations in gross and the individual payments per man. Your letter proceeds to state that “the difficulty had partially arisen due to a tightening up of the practice of returning men for allocation purposes for whom it is not intended to provide employment.’’ I have questioned the local officers, and am satisfied that no error was made in the returns here. As to the second cause alleged by you, namely, the tightening up, etc., that appears on the face of it to suggest that money had been obtained from your board through false returns made by your officers here with a view to obtaining a greater allocation than we were entitled to. Personally I believe such a suggestion to be entirely without foundation and unworthy of you, and it appears to me to be a poor excuse to set forth for cutting down the allocation to these unfortunate men. Your letter further states that ‘it will be necessary for a report to be obtained before clarity on the subject can be obtained.’ I assume this report would be asked for from the Masterton office; if I am correct in this assumption, I would respectfully ask when you propose to obtain such a report. Up to midday to-day no application for such a report had reached the local office. Meanwhile I re-assert that the men’s allocations have been severely cut without justification, and the short payment should be made good without further delay. Your letter also states that our allocation was on the same basis as Hamilton’s. I have communicated with the Mayor of Hamilton, and I find that whatever the basis is, Hamilton’s figures are better than ours. It seems to me that an error has been made in your office somewhere, and that it should be put right at the very earlics moment, Mr Sykes had arranged with the Minister of Employment to see us in Wellington on 13th February, at 11.45 a.in.” Mr Jordan went on to observe. “Prior to this, on the afternoon on 12th February, I telephoned to Mr Bromley again and suggested that as he had imputed incorrect returns to the local Certifying Officer to attend in Wellington on the next day, when the deputation would be going down so that the matter might be cleared up. This Mr Bromley refused to do. All lie said was: ‘Come down and we will talk about it.’ On the 13th I went down to Wellington and met Mr Sykes at 11.45 a.m. I was told that the Minister had been called to a Cabinet meeting and could not see us until 2.15 p.m. As I had an appointment with the Mortgagors Relief Commission here

in Masterton at 4 p.m. I could not wait, and so decided to go to see Mr Bromley with Mr Sykes. A Press reporter was not allowed in. I remained there for an hour and a half with Mr Bromley and his allocation clerk, Mr Beaufort. Mr Bromley admitted that he had sent me an “intentionally indefinite” letter, and still asserted that there had been no cut in the allocation to Masterton. I pointed out to him that the allocation had been made on the same basis for at least twelve months down to 29th January last, and that all the individual sheets were in his office, and that he had also the weekly returns from his own officer in Masterton. I asked when the returns from Masterton had been found incorrect, and was told by the allocation clerk, Mr Beaufort, that they had taken tiie matter up after the report of our meeting of Ist February in the Press. I pointed out that this was ridiculous —that the cut had been made before the meeting and was the cause of the meeting, and that the explanation was not intelligible. I asked him then if lie could? show me a copy of any comment or reprimand that had been made to the Masterton office for sending in incorrect returns, and he said he was unable to show me any such writing. I asked him if he could tell me that the individual returns had been checked with the weekly returns and found incorrect, and he admitted that this had not been done. I asked him then to let me have some explanation in writing that would satisfy the Masterton relief workers that they were- not being unjustly treated. At 1.25 p.m. I left to catch the 1.30 car back to Masterton, leaving it to Mr Sykes to see the Minister and explain why I was not there. I was also quite convinced that in the then state of the matter, if we had gone to the Minister we would have been told that it was a departmental matter and would have to be taken up first of all with the Department. I have had no communication of any kind from Mr Bromley or his allocation officer since the 13tli ultimo. During this week the Borough Engineer (Mr C. R. Mabson) made a special trip to Wellington to see Mr Bromley. Mr Mabson asked Mr Bromley when he was sending forward the letter of explanation which had been promised, and was told that ‘the Mayor of Masterton will get no letter from me.’ I have now written to Mr Bromley inviting him to attend a public meeting to be held on Tuesday next, Gth March, and explain the matter to the public.”