PASSING IT ON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 218, 13 September 1940, Page 4

PASSING IT ON.

EMPLOYERS' POSITION. MEETING WAGE INCREASES. The recent general order made by the Arbitration Court granting an increase of 5 per cent in wages to all employees working under awards or industrial agreements is criticised in the annual report of the Auckland Provincial Employers' Association, which is to be presented to members at a meeting to be held on Thursday next. The report states that in recent months almost every new award prescribed higher wage rates or more expensive conditions, and in the long run the workers would reap no benefit from the increase of 5 per cent granted in the general order because employers would be obliged to pass on the increased wage costs to the consumer by way of increased prices for goods and services. The report continues that all agreed production should be maintained at its present level, and, if possible, increased. Approximately (10,000 men had left trade and industry to join the armed forces and the lfcmainder must work harder and longer if production was 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."