Wage Rates Of Skilled And Unskilled Workmen

Chronicle (Levin), 7 February 1948, Page 3

Wage Rates Of Skilled And Unskilled Workmen

WELLINGTON, Feb. 6. So loug as it was claimed that'every worker wlio ^cked up a lilc or kainiu.er was a tradesinan, so loug must einploycrs oppose auv iiicrease in the margin lietween slcillied and unskilled wage rates, said Mr J. It. Hanlon, appearing for the employerSj in the Oourt oi Arbilration today. The court was liearing the elaim. of the New Zealand Engineerang, Coaeh Building, Aircraft and lielated Trades Lnion'a elaim for a new award. Mr J. Neale, representing the worlcers, had said that to restore the 1919 inargin between skilled and tmskilledworkers in the industrv, would involve a rise of about 4s hourly for tradesmen and that was the union elaim. Tradesmen were entitled to expeet that their training and speeialised skill would be adequately reeognised in the wage structure. The reeent tendency had been to bring unskilled rates nearer to tradesmen Js rates, said Mr Hanlon. A labourer suggested that it cost him as much to live as it did a tradesinan. The claim of the workers was not only extravagant but also illogical. The claims originally sought to reduce tlie tradesmen 's status by widening the definition M txadesmen. If the applieants were

sineere in their elaim they should seek to raise the status of tradesmen by narrowing the deiinition. ' ' We cannot logieally be expeeted to combine in- > ereases in margins with decreases in' skill, ' ' he said. "If we have more and more workers eoming into the group we eaunot keep building wages upward and upwards for skill wliieh is not there'. As long as we have various tribunals lixing wage rates in this country, so ldng will we have transfers to industries with tc-mporarily higher rates ,and we will have no industrial. stability in the eountry. ' ' Mr Jusl^iee Tyndall said he did not think'Mr . Hanlon- eould altogether blame the Wage Tribunal for the transfers. He had only to look at advertisements iii the neivspapers to see the rates some employers were oft'ering.