WAGE INCREASE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1940, Page 4

WAGE INCREASE.

GRANTED BY ARBITRATION COURT ALL AWARD RATES RAISED FIVE PER CENT. ON ACCOUNT OF HIGHER COST OF LIVING. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ’ WELLINGTON. This Day. All rates of remuneration, including- time and piece wages and overtime and other special payments, in awards, industrial agreements and apprenticeship orders now in pL force in New Zealand are to he increased by 5 per cent.

This is the decision of the Court of Arbitration on the proceeding's brought before it last month by the New Zealand Painters and Decorators’ Federation. asking for a general order under the Rates of Wages Emergency Regulations, 1940. fixing wages in industry to meet the increased cost of living. The Court’s order takes effect as from today. The decision is a majority one of the judge of the Court. Mr Justice Tyndall, and the workers’ representative, Mr A. L. Monteith, but the latter has also recorded a separate opinion. The employers’ representative, Mr W. Cecil Prime, dissents from the decision.

In his memorandum Mr Justice Tyndall states that as the special taxation for war purposes was imposed by Parliament subsequent to the promulgation of the Rates of Wages Emergency Regulations, and also subsequent to the filing of the application to the Court for the general order, he did not take into account the national security tax and other special taxation imposed for war purposes in his decision.

Justification for the decision could be found by comparison with Great Britain and Australia, says Mr Justice Tyndall in the concluding paragraph of his memorandum. In those countries the average rates of wages had been increased since the outbreak of the war to meet the increased cost of living.