AWARDS AND PRICES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 134, 23 June 1937, Page 4

AWARDS AND PRICES

Costs Burden Falling On Coiisumer RETAILERS^ DISCUSSION i A meeting of Hastings retailers waa i heild in the Rialto tearooms last night, Mr. G. Griffiths presidedl, Letters of congratulation the retailers for their enterprise in. having the town adorned for the week of triple celebrations — the Coronation, Hastinga Jubilee and E'mpire Shopping Week — - were received from the Mayor and Chamber of Commerce. One member asked if tli© Borough Council had borne the proportion of the cost of decora- ' tions wliich it was stated would be so ! borne. The information was not available. One member referred to the cooperation of the Power Board. A letter was received from the H.B. Rugby Football Union askittg that a holiday be granted on the occasfon. ©f the visit of the Springboks, The patch is fixed for Wednesday, September 15, at Napier. Members regretted that th» date fixed did not coincide "With the weekly half-holiday. It was decided that no action should be taken. When the proposed shop assistants1 award was being diseussed tbe ehairman saidl it was a duty due to the consumers that they should be told how increasingly heavy were the costs laid upon all their purchases. The consumers were not represented in the bargaining initiated by union secretaries, but the burden in the greater parfc musfi fall on their spending power. Mr. H. W. O. Baird referred to another aspect of the" problem which forced the employer to reduce his employment of labour. So as to obtain not what he wished but What was permissible to enable hiin to carry one. Present conditions, he said, made it difficult and in some cases impossible for some young people to secure employment owing to fixed wages for eertain ages. Even if a portioU of what was now cl.aimed were secured, it was eertain to increaso unemployment. Again, it did not standardise real wages by securing a Dominion award. Higher transit and rent costs in a centre like Wellington meant inequality if workers in that and .like centres received the same amount as workers ia towns "where living was considerably cheaper. There had been strikes in the past and it was too much to hop« there would be none in the future when the Government had made the position of unions stronger than ever before. The secretary reported on a meeting held in Napier respecting the application for a new Dominion award for nearly every retailer in the country. If the application were granted, he said, it was said that it would mean approximately a £2,750,000 total increase in wages for the 28,000 shop assistants if the increase of unemployment did not lessen that great sum. It wa» probably true many traders would h® forced out of business, especially in country. towns, because .the iratio of wages to turnover would there be heaviest. However hurtful .and destructive such adjustments might *' he to individual traders, the greatest hurt must he to the consumers, for none but they could continue to stagger under the rapidly mounting load, The meeting then proceeded ♦« appoint three committees, one to oooperate with the Napier conrmittee to draw up counter-proposals, and to secure representation of country interests ; one to educate the shopping public to the extent to which they are involved, and the third to organise tbe Hastings retailera. ,