RELIEF WORKS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4581, 2 July 1923, Page 2

RELIEF WORKS.

ABOLITION URGED. Conferring on Thursday with the Minister of Public Wprks, representatives of the New Zealand Workers’ Union urged that relief works should be abolished. There certainly should be less need pf such works this, year than there was last year (says the Dominion). But their complete abolition might amount to doing away with the only obvious means of offering assistance to a proportion of the men who need it during periods of unemployment. Employment on relief works is offered to men many of whom are unfit for employment as ordinary Public Works labourers. The wages paid—los a day to single men and 12s a day to married men—are admittedly low. At least a considerable proportion of the men who accept relief work, however, are probably better off with these wages than if they were paid by results. This is not a reflection on the industry of the men in question. All that is implied is that men who are engaged normally in various light occupations are of necessity ill-fitted to compete in labouring work with able-bodied labourers. In spite of what was said by the members of the deputation it may be doubted whether regular Public Works employees would long be satisfied to work for the same wages as relatively ill-qualified lelief worker-. It was to be remembered that relief works are intended only to tide men over a period until they are able to return to more suitable and better paid employment. A case possibly might be made out for readjusting relief wages in the direction of increasing the amount paid to married men with children and reducing the amount paid to single men.