PUBLIC WORKS EMPLOYEES.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1921, Page 1

PUBLIC WORKS EMPLOYEES.

STATEMENT BY MINISTER. WELLINGTON, June 22 A deputation from the Workers’ Union waited on the Hon J .0. Coates to-day. The deputation was introduced by Mr R. Cooke, secretary, who suggested that the Minister should allow one of his officials to travel through New Zealand and see the different

.vorks in company with one of the representatives of the Union so that agree-

ments could be gone into and interpreted clause by clause. Mr R. Behan, representing Otira, brought under the notice of the Minister a compensation claim by George Robinson, who had a poisoned knee owing to water from the tunnel having got on to a scratch. The Department refused to pay, because it alleged the accident had not been notified. The next point ,he mentioned was the pay-

ment of motormen and guards. Firstclass motormen should receive 19s a day and guards 18s a day. At present the rates were uneven. Ten men were concerned and they were on different rates. They were all first-class men. All the others wore happy and contented under the co-operative system. Mr J. McManus, who had travelled in Southland as an organiser of the Union, complained that the Government had placed men on relief works at a less rate than agreed upon. They had been put on at Beaumont. Mr Coates: Why, bless my soul, all your Dunedin members asked for this! Mr McManus said they had also been

put on at Tawanui, Catlins district. The next complaint was regarding the wet place at Dip Creek weir, Galloway, regarding which' there was a dispute. Another complaint was that men had been dispensed with on public works in Central Otago and others put on in their place as relief workers. Mr Coates said his recollection was that the men in this case had gone on to the irrigation works before the Department curtailed on ordinary public

works. Mr McManus urged next that huts should bi; provided at Cliatto Creek and in the Catlins district, where men were living in tents. Other members of the deputation brought under the notice of the Minister complaints connected with North Island works. One member of the deputation said the tents at the Mnngaliao hydro-electric head works were made of cheese-cloth. Some of the matters complained of seemed of rather a trivial nature to occupy the time of a busy Minister. The Minister listened patiently, and

was evidently anxious to smooth away all trouble wherever it was possible. One demand was lor a free railway pass for the Dominion organiser of the

Union. fn his reply the Minister said he was unable to agree to the suggestion to allow an officer of the Department to accompany the Union organiser over all i construction work to discuss clauses of the agreement of which the interpretation was in dispute, with the engineers in charge, in order to secure uniformity of action. The Minister said lie would consider with the Engineer-in-Chief the question of allowing the organiser to discuss such clauses with the engineers in charge, to secure, if possible, a uniform interpretation. There was a scarcity of labour and timber, but the Department had done and was doing what it could. It would cost £20,000 to £25,000 to house the men sit Mangahao alone. He claimed that public works employees were now in a bettei position than ever before. At one time public works employees wore the first to have their pay reduced, but he belt! (bat they should be among the last to suffer a reduction. At one time all public works employees at a period of financial stringency like the present would have had their wages reduced, and all public yvorks would have been turned into relief works, but now wages men on schedule items of public works, railways, roads, hydro-electric schemes, irrigation, bridges, and such like had not had their wages reduced. The Government recognised that these men wore its construction workers andnot until other men in outside lilt', were subjected to similar venmnee,. should they be compel* accept a reduction. He did not SO HB reason why men on these works the Government wanted at top speed should have their and pay on co-operative contract*® duct'd Cabinet bad fixed the pav for relief works. The simply allotted work as near as posH» to the' men’s homes. He looked those as purely relief works who were absolutely stuck could earn something to go on with, would enquire into the earnings, with the Minister of Labour. He be only too glad to go into mo vai^H complaints mentioned to see they could be adjusted.