STAFF SALARIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 61, 3 April 1945, Page 5

STAFF SALARIES

PROBLEM FOR COUNTY COUNCIL

COMPARISON WITH UNION

WORKERS

The Whakatane County Council as a direct result of a joint letter from its salaried officers is now faced with the problem which has been exercising most commercial firms before today—the comparative increase in remuneration which it is necessary to pay its non-union executive officers in order to bring them into equitable comparison with the recent rate of pay now payable to UniSn workers. The letter which was signed by the five senior officers drew attention to recent developments in Departmental institutions and pointed out that in some case 9 employees of the Council were still in receipt of salaries which wdre fixed just on 20 years ago.

Cr McCracken in speaking to the subject said that as far as the clerk and the engineer were concerned it was correct to say that there had been no increase for the' past, 20 years. The Finance Committee had gone, into the matter thoroughly and had discovered that there were obvious anomalies and it was therefore necessary for the Council to give the matter very careful consideration. He thought that, the whole subject might be referred back to the Com-i mittee for full investigation together with comparative rates of pay and salaries paid by other parallel local authorities. Cr McGougan agreed, while. Cr Burt admitted that while in the past he had been 'up against this sort ol' thing' in the present in*-, stance he thought that rectification should be made, and that the Council should do the right thing. "Since the. M.P.s took the lid off stabilisation and helped themselves to the I suppose we will be faced with this business all over the country/' declared Cc McCready. He agreed that it was a demand for •which no worker could Ifi blamed for making, and asked that the mechanic should be placed in the same category. The chairman said it was impera-f tive to have other comparative fig-) ures to go by before any finality could be reached.

Cr Hunter pointed out that the Unions would see to it that the unskilled workers received a maximum wage, but that the salaried officers were left more or less to their own devices. There were cases where unskilled workers were drawing as much as specialised men.

The chairman: We would only have to consider the position of those members of our staff who are not covered by Unions!.

On Cr McCready's motion it was deckled to refer the matter back to the Finance Committee for further investigation antl comparative findings from other local bodies.