LABOUR COSTS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1928, Page 4

LABOUR COSTS

STATE PECULATION OF WAGES. FALLACIES OF SYSTEM. WELLINGTON, March 28. Interesting references to labour costs was made by Professor A. 11. Tucker, of Christchurch, in an address delivered at the National Industrial Conference to-day. “Labour costs constitute a large and important proportion of total costs,” said Professor Tbcker. “Many investigations have shown that national wage bills are at least half of the total national incomes at various countries. For Australia Tt is estimated that incomes of wage-earners may be as much as 62 per cent of the total national income. They are likely to be appreciably over half the total income in New Zealand and, therefore, constitute the largest factor in the average costs of production. ft appears, too, that high labour costs in the sheltered industries arc passed on with other costs to he borne by the unsheltered industries and consumers (excluding workers under award conditions whose standards of living are protected). .Index numbers show that in 1027 agricultural and pastoral wages were 47 per cent above the 1914 level; other wages, mainly award rates, were 63 per cent above that level; while wholesale export and import prices had risen only from 37 to 40 per cent above the same base period. Official figures, too, estimate that the net value of the total production per head is slighly lower than before the war. “The charge on production made by taxation and rates is now about 50 per cent greater than before the war, and labour under award rates appears to enjoy a slightly higher standard of living. Some other section of the community is. therefore, bearing the burden of lower production and higher charges, and much of it appears to fall on the farmers, whence, it reacts on the community in general. “No reasonable objection can be raised against high wage rates and high standards of living. On the contrary, they are much to be desired so long as they are justified by high productivity of labour. It appears, however, that wages and labour conditions arc fixed in New Zealand with very little regard either to the productivity of labour to t-lie capacity of the country to absorb labour under the rates and conditions awarded. For this the system of compulsory arbitration is mainly responsible. Our system was established as an experiment. aiming mainly to promote conciliation and collective bargaining with the Court as a Court of Appeal to be used in case of emergency. It has developed in a manner never intended into a system of State regulation of wages and labour conditions.”