BETTER OFF AS NAVVY

Chronicle (Levin), 6 March 1948, Page 5

BETTER OFF AS NAVVY

(N.Z.P.A.~

-. Reuter J

Trade Wages Higher Than Prolessional Pay

Cobvright)

Received Friday, 7 p.m. ; SYDNEY, March. 5. "Why send your boy to eollege or U niversity ? He'll be bett'er off as a navvy. " This remark, overheard in a suburban train, illustrsrtes one view of the problem wkich is exercising the minds of many Australians. Charges that taxation and the operations of militant unions have coinbined with other faetors to destroy the niargin between the rewards t'or technical and crcative skill and those for less intelligent forms of labour, are being freely made.' Investigation of instances from several Austraiian eities -reveals that in some cases at least, the wages paid for manual work have caught up with and pnssed tlie salaries paid seientists, cliemists, engineers, architeets, surveyors, and draughtsinen. Perhaps the most striking instance eomes from Afelbourne, where iiulustrial ehemists vvitli -University degrees and ten vears' experience are receiving £7 5s weeklv. Tliis is exactly the wage paid with lodgings and extras to a Afelbourne bread carter. It is, liowever, 13s less than tlie money received by a leading pastrvcook in a three-ntan bakeliou.se, £1 Is less than tlie legal wage of a fitter ann turner in Svdney, and £2 14s 2ct lesn than the antount paid weelcly to a plasterer. The highest paid seientists of the Gouncil of Seientific and Industrial Research directing research into atomic problems reeeive £22 8s a week, or £1 8s more than the wage paid a foreman pastrycook in a large Arelboitrne emporium. Tliere are anthentic reports of engineers and architeets in olfarge of eonstruetion projects receiving less than , some of tlie men under them. ATen with Fnivefsitv or technical education attribute the convparative deeline in their positicn to tlie' fact tliat it is difficult for them to present a united front to their emplovers or the Arbitration Court. Even in the upper braekets thev are tvorse off than before tlie war, as increased taxation has more than wiped out the small salary improvements."Artisans' wages have gone up, but brainworkers ' wages have inereased liv a pitifully smaller proportiou,'' says the Bvdney Sun. "Australia xnust realise tliat it caiinot expect to get its brains on the eheap all the tinie."