HIGHER WAGES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 137, 10 May 1940, Page 2

HIGHER WAGES

PROPOSAL EXAMINED. ' MR BEGG'S CRITICISM. Per Press-Association. ' . - DUNEDIN, May 9. “Tlie Dunedin Manufacturers’ Association is quite right in correcting my statement that the Employers’ Federation did not join in the recommendation to the Government to give authority to the Court of Arbitration to amend the wages provisions of all awards at intervals of not less than six months,”, said Mr Janies Begg in a statement to-day -V “I hasten to admit ray .mistake,” added Mr Begg. “In the report' that came under my notice only the Federation of Labour and the Manufacturers’ Association were mentioned. I don’t know whether the executive of the Employers’ Federation acted on its own initiative or not. but several organisations with which I am connected are members of the federation, and I have never heard that they were consulted. Thousands of employers are not in agreement with the federation on this matter. “The Federation of Labour approached' the Court of Arbitration with a view to getting a general order for . an increase in wages to compensate for increased cost of living, and, whatever may be said to. the contrary,,the Manufacturers’ Association and the Employers’ Federation have, by their recommendation, facilitated this being done. If the recommendation is adopted, the Government will be relieved of a great deal of responsiblity, and the onus of deciding whether there is to be a general rise in wages will ‘.ybrleft to the Court of Arbitration. As our . way effort is largely bound up with questions of wages and costs, the Government should assume full responsibility in these matters. The gross injustice of raising wages to compensate for increased cost of living while leaving thousands of the poorer section of the people, those who live on small private incomes, people on superannuation, pensioners;, sustenance men and others, not only without any increase'in their incomes to meet increased costs, hut also with an additional burden in providing their share of the increased wages, needs no elaboration.”