CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 118, 15 November 1939, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

PAYMENT OF UNION DUES

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—My attention has been drawn to the discussion at the last meeting of the Lower Hutt Borough Council concerning the demand by the secretary of the General Labourers' Union for the dismissal jf a man who had hot paid his full union dues. I am the man in question and I desire to correct one or-two points, and to state the facts.

I have not been in receipt of any family allowance for the past two years and Councillor Hall's statement is quite incorrect and misleading. I am not able to pay the full amount of 25s demanded as union dues in, one lump sum out of any week's pay; and maintain my wife and .seven children under the age of sixteen years. I have offered to Tpay instalments" of the amount demanded and as recently as Tuesday, November 7, I offered the union organiser five" shillings and another five shillings was available on pay day, November 9. He declined to accept "the instalment. My gross wages on Scheme 13 are £4 10s, from which is deducted 4s 6d as Social Security tax and I find it very difficult to pay even an odd 5s per week as union dues and 30s per week rent for a State house and maintain nine persons on the balance of £2 10s per week, with costs of all commodities constantly on the rise,-—I am, etc., . "'" D. BREE.

Lower Hutt, . November 15.