COURT CRITICISED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1940, Page 6

COURT CRITICISED

INCREASE IN AWARD RATES

PROBLEM FOR EMPLOYERS.

INJUSTICE TO PEOPLE OF SMALL FIXED INCOMES.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. Employers and all who are carrying responsibility for the Dominion’s economic maintenance will be concerned at the Court’s decision to grant an all-round increase of 5 per cent on the present wage rates from today,” said Mr W. Machin, president of the Employers’ Association, criticising the Arbitration Court wage increase. “I have examined most carefully the Court’s stated grounds for this decision.” Mr Machin added, “and am surprised that much material evidence — not controverted at the hearing—should have been ingored by the Court, and further that assumptions concerning the future, which witnesses would not accept were used in part by the Court to justify the increases awarded. There are very many employers and others who will be discouraged in their struggle to make ends meet under the present difficult conditions, and I still ; say this discouragement will be a facI tor in dulling enthusiasm for more production. Wage-earners have succeeded in getting others to pay their shilling in the pound of extra taxation, and many who will sadly help to pay this, in addition to their own extra tax, are people with small, fixed incomes. who have been wage-earners in the past."