SOME LARGE EARNINGS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 May 1919, Page 12

SOME LARGE EARNINGS.

FIGURES FROM AUSTRALIA.

Sydney, May_ 1. The cost of living may be distressingly hip* in this country but, judging from official information from various sources this week, at least some sections of the working men of this country have no reason to complain. It may bo remembered that, some three months ago, a number of boilermakers and others at the Cockatoo Island Naval Dockyards were dismissed owing to their "go slow" tactics. It was °pr° vetl that they were not doing one-tenth of the work that, might have been ejected of them. They were so obviously in the wrong that even their union turned against them, and they capitulated and humbly sougM: re-em-ployment They were taken on again on a piecework basis. It is now announced that vliese men have 4roppe« "go slow," and that Their average during a recent period is as fololv/s:.--Platers-£l 15s 3d per day; hand riveters, f 1 9s Id per day; machine riveters, £1 2s 7d per day; platers' helpers, £1 7s 3d per day; pneumatic drillers, 19s 6*d, and Evidence about the earnings of the coal-miners is now being placed before the commission which is inquiring into the coal-mining industry with a view to making a recommendation about the claims of the miners for increased wages. The evidence shows that at one mine, held to he typical of many, the earnings of men—taking the average period of a year—are as follows:—22 miners, average of £lO os per man per fortnight; 38 wheelers, average of £9 nor man per fortnight. At another mi up—a fairly large one-on the Newcastle field—the average net earnings per pair of miners per fortnight has been £l7 Bs, with not a great deal of broken time. These rates rule in this country among almost all large bodies of half-skilled workersslaughtermen, miners, wharf laborers, and so iofifch—who dea.ve closely to unionism. >