Wage Decisions

'Keen Interest'

In Plantation

From Don Barrett, in Rabaul The attitude of the House of Assembly to the report of Papua-New Guinea’s rural wage inquiry, and to the P-NG Administration’s handling of the

report, are being keenly awaited

by the plantations.

THE decision to increase plantation wages, together with other re commendations that will certainly add to production costs, come at a time when copra prices have dropped sharply, when pest and disease pro blems face the cocoa industry (out put is down by several thousand tons this year) and portion. of the last coffee harvest remains unsold.

The report, a most comprehensive one occupying some 40 foolscap pages, was released in September, and the Administrator, Sir Donald Cleland, announced then that the Assembly will be asked to approve legislation to give effect to its re commendations.

Not all the recommendations are those of the board of inquiry. The board recommended an increase of 50c per lunar month in the cash wage of first and second-year agreement workers, but Sir Donald announced that Assembly approval would be sought for an increase of $1 a month.

Restraint Needed

Sir Donald said the Administration shared the board’s opinion that there must be restraint on any measure which would increase production costs of rural export industries, but he said that “at the same time careful consideration must be given to the needs of rural workers”. A larger increase than that recommended would be justified and would not go beyond the capacity to pay of the industries concerned, he added.

The proposed new increases will raise the cash component of the minimum rural wage to $4 and $4.50 a month for first and second-year agreement workers respectively.

Increases for third-year employees will need further consideration, the Administrator says.

It is fair to say that most employers of rural labour anticipated that an increase in the minimum wage would be recommended.

The board recommended against the introduction of an all-cash wage for rural employees, and against any action to introduce a statutory system of bonus payments.

Present legislation requires em ployers to ration all agreement workers, and many employers find that so-called “casual” workers are more efficient if housed and fed.

There is no doubt that they would be better fed than if an all-cash wage were paid. In any case, in more remote plantations a cash wage would be impracticable.

Many employers already operate bonus systems with differing degrees of success, and it seems wise to leave this as a matter for individual agreement between employer and employee.

A recommendation regarding leave has been accepted by the Administra tion as being desirable. The board suggested leave at the rate of one week a year, exclusive of public holidays, and long service leave of

three weeks after five years’ con tinuous service. However, the board’s recommendation that leave for agreement workers be contingent on the signing of a second agreement was rejected.

These recommendations are much in line with concessions sought and obtained for the territory’s urban workers in recent years. They are certainly just, but will undoubtedly increase costs of production.

At the same time, with better conditions of employment it would seem that employers might reasonably expect greater continuity and so more efficiency from their labour.

Two important recommendations accepted by the Administration but which will demand further research concern the development of a piece rate system for major rural industries, and experiments in labour settlement in areas of concentrated rural development.

These recommendations point the

(Continued on p. 144)

way to an abandonment of the long standing, but surely rather archaic, system of agreements.

A recommendation for the training of supervisors for rural industry is stated as being “valuable and ac ceptable”. Some action in this direc tion has already been recommended and taken by the territory’s ad hoc Youth Employment Committee. One of the problems seen by this latter committee is to get employers and rural workers to accept educated supervisors. The committee’s report makes the final point that its sug gestions are “generally aimed at encouraging more permanent em ployment, and the development of greater experience among rural employees. But increased mobility of labour and greater flexibility in employer-employee relations are also considered to be matters of im portance.”

Highlands' View

In Goroka in October, Mr. lan Downs, president of the Highlands Farmers and Settlers’ Association, said association members “deplored” the increase in wages for first year labourers “to an extent which would compromise the ability of rural employers to reward longer service employees”.

He said the Administration’s decision was a blow against career workers, because employers could not be expected to pay higher wages to both short term transitory em ployees and workers of long service.

He added: “The public should realise that employers of labour in the territory are under an obligation to provide food, clothing, accommo dation, fuel, light, cooking facilities, blankets and other issues for an employee and his whole family.

Because of this the entire work force is fully protected from rises in the cost of living”.