RELIEF RATES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 32, 8 February 1933, Page 8

RELIEF RATES

MEETING AT MASTERTON

CITY BASIS WANTED

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post") MASTERTON, This Day.

There was a very large attendance at a meeting of ■ Masterton relief -workers, held last night. The meeting,. explained the convener, had been called to try and. bring together. all the relief workers in an effort to increase their sustenance allocation. . ■ ;■• • s Mr. K. Judd, who was elected chairman, said that, -excluding the men on the farms and in the camps, there "were at present .181 relief workers in .Masterton. There were 91 men on the f aims, 'and* 90 in the camps. One of-the.main points of grievance was the difference in the rates of sustenance received by Wellington and Masterton relief workers. There were 30 married.Telief workers in Masterton with no children.1 This class gained 2s 6d a month as compared -with those in "Wellington. All other Masterton classes lost on the monthly rates of pay. The 40 married men in Masterton with one child lost 17s 6d a month as compared with ■Wellington; the 50 married men tnth 2 children lost £1 17s 6d, and the 60 married men with three or more children lost £1 a month as compared with Wellington. The total approximate monthly loss to Masterton relief workers as compared with those in "Wellington was £176 10s. In addition £250 a month was expended in Wellington on rations for the unemployed. In Wellington men with two children got 13 days a month," in Masterton they got 9} days, in Carterton 7i, and in Martinborough 5J days. ' A discussion ensued as to whether a new relief workers' union should be formed or not, and eventually the following resolution was: carried:, "That the Belief Workers' Union has the full confidence of this representative meeting." ■ :• .. "That this mass meeting of relief workers demands that Masterton's allocation be on the same basis as that in Wellington," was the text of a motion passed after the rates of sustenance in Masterton had been fully discussed. . .. ■ It was also decided that the f oll6w-1 ing remit be forwarded to headquarters in Wellington for circulation to all the branches of the,union: "That a demand be made that all relief workers receive the same pay, according to their dependants." * , } The following new committee and other officers were elected:—-President, Mr. K. Judd; vice-presidents,. Messrs. M. Johnson and G. Selby; organising secretary and treasurer, Mr. H* Duley; committee, Messrs.'B. Johns, E. Wilton, and A. Ewington. ■ .. America is now spending a greater annual amount on the prevention and detection of crime than it spent- on carrying on its share of the war.