GOVERNMENT WORKMEN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 4

GOVERNMENT WORKMEN.

A correspondent, writing from the Rotorua district, draws attention to the haphazard and dilatory manner in which workmen employed by the Government receive their wages. Some miles from Rotorua, he states, on what is known as the "Kaimai track," a gang of between 30 and 40 men are at present employed. They havo no written agreement—provided for in tho Workmen's Wages Act— as is required when wages arc paid at intervals longer than a week, but in spite of this fact those men are understood to bo paid monthly. The succeeding month is, however, usually well advanced before tho cheques make their appearance. On the day on which our correspondent wrote—February 26—the men in question had not received their wages for tho month of January. It would seem that a rumour has gained currency—an altogether groundless rumour let us hope—that, following the practice of tho Government, all possible disbursements would be stopped during the last months of tho financial year, so that they might help to swell Sir Joseph Ward's surplus. If the wages to which we refer have not been deliberately withheld there seems to have been gross remissness in somo Government Department. A peculiar feature, remarks our correspondent, is apparent among Government workmen, at all events in that particular part of tho Dominion. While a workman may bo discharged at any time, there exists no provision for him receiving his wages until long after the end of the current month. If he ceases to work, say, in the middle of the month, he will be paid about four weeks afterwards. Tho Government, it would appear, belongs to that class colloquially alluded to as "poor payers": more particularly during tho last three months of the financial year. An instance is given of six men being dismissed at the end of a month and being compelled to remain in the neighbouring township for a fortnight for their wages—idle all the time and paying for board and lodging in the local hotels. This is not as it should be. Surely tho Government is as able as any other employer of labour to pay its workmen, if not weekly, with some approach to regularity. That workingmen should be forced to remain idle a fortnight waiting for their wages after they havo left tho Government's employment, is scandalously unjust. No ordinary employer of labour would dare attempt such a thing as this. The wonder is that more has not been heard about this remarkable state of affairs long before now.