UPKEEP IN OFF-SEASON

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20023, 23 August 1939, Page 5

UPKEEP IN OFF-SEASON

SEASONAL WORKERS HINT OF N.Z. ACTION FUNCTION OF EMPLOYERS (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The possibility o£ acition being taken by the Government to compel freezing companies to contribute towards the upkeep of employees in the off-season or to pay wages 1 sufficient to tide them over” was mentioned by ithe Hon. H. T. Armstrong in an address to unemployed worlc--ers in Christchurch. “We must expect to have unemployment in Christchurch in the winter, because of seasonal occupations,” said the Minister. "Some of the newspaper editors and some politicians say thait freezing workers make such money during the season 'What they Should 'have enough to tide them over. That is an old old story.

“That may be the position of some workers in the freezing industry, bin I should imagine that the majority earn just enough to keep them going while they are at work (hear, hear) without making any {provision toil (tiding them over a few months.

The Government’s policy was not to pay sustenance, because there should be useful and necessary work for everybody in the country.

"I think the freezing companies should carry some of the responsibility,” continued Mr. Armstrong. (Hear, hear). “They employ some thousands of men and 1 some of them nay pretty substantial dividends and I don’t think that the State should be called upon every year to tide them over till it suits the companies convenience to fake (the men back again.”

The companies should be either looked to to take some of the responsibility of providing work or pay sufficient to enable the men to live for the season, said Mr. Armstrong. That question would have to be gone into very soon.