DRIVERS' WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 124, 27 May 1937, Page 11

DRIVERS' WAGES

HOUSEHOLD REMOVALS

Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, in reply to "A Master Carrier," who suggested in a letter in Tuesday's "Post" that the increasing business in household removals secured by the Railway Department has been due to its lorry drivers (who handle these removals in Wellington) receiving lower wages than the master carriers are required to pay their en> ployees since the restoration of wages to the 1931 level, points out that the railway employees referred to are paid by the hour with! a weekly minimum, and that the present hourly rate of lorry drivers employed by the Railway Department is higher than it was in 1931, and higher than the existing award rates applying to drivers of motor vehicles of similar type to those used by the Department. As the Department's quotations for household removals include the time of lorfy drivers calculated on an. hourly basis, the master carriers are plac*d ?t no disadvantage in . this . respect, ~as. the folloXving schedule of the hourly rates shows: —Drivers of motor vehicles up to two tons: Award rates, 2s 0.82 d; railway rates, 2s 2.4 d. Drivers of motor vehicles over two tons and up to four tons: Award rates, 2s 1.5 d; railway rates, 2s 2.4 d.

The Railway Department has no vehicles in Wellington exceeding • capacity of four tons.