BRIEF BENEFIT

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21217, 13 September 1940, Page 7

BRIEF BENEFIT

WORKERS AND WAGE ORDER EMPLOYERS’ ALTERNATIVE The report of the Auckland Provincial Employers Association, to be presented at the annual meeting next Thursday, criticises the recent general wages order of the Arbitration Court. It states that the Court’s memorandum neither told how the Court arrived at its decision nor justified its action. In the long run the workers would reap no benefit from the order because the employers would be obliged to pass on the increased wage costs to the consumer by way of increased prices for goods and services. “That production should be maintained at its present level, and if possible increased, is agreed by all,” continues the report. “Approximately 60,000 men—including the fittest and most efficient—have left trade and industry to join the armed forces. It is a fact that if 60,000 men are withdrawn from trade and industry the remainder must work harder and longer if production is to be maintained or increased.

“If hours of work were increased by 10 per cent and the workers paid extra —say, ordinary rates —for the extra time worked, production would be maintained and possibly increased, and the workers’ additional earnings would more than offset any present or future increase in the cost of living. This simple, logical and, in fact, only solution of the problem cannot be disregarded for long.”