WAGE INCREASES JUSTIFIED BY LIVING COSTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 18, 29 July 1949, Page 5

WAGE INCREASES JUSTIFIED BY LIVING COSTS

(Special to Beacon) Wellington, Tnursday

“The Opposition will support the amendment wholeheartedly because we realise that the cost of living and costs generally have increased to such an extent that it is absolutely necessary to increase wages and salaries so that the workers can buy what they need with the meagre income many of them are getting at the present time,” remarked Mr W. Sullivan speaking in the second reading debate of the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives. Mr Sullivan said that the Minister had stated that the minimum rate for male workers was now to be 3/3 per hour or 26/- per day/ or £6/5/- a week for a 40 hour week, and in the case of female workers the minimum rates were to be 2/2 per hour, 17/4 per day or £4/3/per week, “We all know that the wages paid at present exceed those rates, but the Government has brought this amendment down now in order that the minimum rate of pay shall be increased so that it shall be comparable or more or less near to the recent increases in the award rates that became effective from June 1 this year,” he said, Ever-Rising Costs

Mr Sullivan contended that the increase in wage costs which was worrying many men in industry today was due largely to Government mismanagement of the country, and it had made the worker worse cfT. Ever-rising costs had driven the workers to demand higher and higher wages, and in spite of stabilisation of which one heard so much, it was that which had brought about some of our industrial trouble. “We on these benches are amazed that the Government has not faced up to the true state of affairs and endeavoured by some means or other to reduce the cost of commodities to the people and so avoid the evermounting spiral of costs and wages,” he said. “So this Bill is necessary because of the actions of the Government in the past.” £1 Worth Only 8/10

The 1948 pound, as was pointed out in the “Public Service Journal” would buy only what ten shillings would buy in 1939, or even less—the “Journal” said it was worth only 8/10. That was why wages and salaries had to be increased. The Government had tried to tell the House that the workers’ cost of living had increased by only 32 per cent.', but he ventured the opinion that costs had increased by 100 per cent and more since 1939, and the cost of living had an. important bearing in the determination of wages and salaries.

“We support the Bill because we know that it is just and fair and that it is necessary to increase the minimum wage standard for the reasons I have explained,” he concluded. “If we had a Government that knew how to manage affars of the country properly, then there would have been no necessitv for this Bill.” The Bill was read a second time and referred to the Local Bills Committee which is to hear evidence on the matter.