To The Point

With

Percy

Chatterton

Earning more, but enjoying it less

During my early years in Papua I found myself functioning not only as a schoolmaster, but also as an unofficial employment officer. There was no Department of Labour in those days, nor, for that matter, was there a Department of Education.

COME to that, there weren’t many job opportunities either. There were fewer than 500 Europeans in Port Moresby. There was minimal economic development, and a modest little public service geared to a Commonwealth grant of £40,000 per annum.

There were no Papuans in the Public Service proper, but a sprinkling were to be found around the Government offices. Most of them were, in effect, office boys, though the Government Printing Office and the telephone exchange stood out among the rest in their efforts to train Papuans for skilled jobs.

How it was once

The status of these Papuans was that of “administration servants”.

They received a small wage plus rations. They had no security of tenure, being liable to dismissal at a fortnight’s notice. And they had no pension rights, though it is only fair to say that those who worked for many years for the Government did in fact receive ex-gratia pensions.

The picture in the private sector was much the same. Papuans went round to the post office to collect the mail, made cups of tea and carried them round the offices, and did other menial chores.

In the stores they saved the Euro pean counter hands the fatigue in volved in getting such of the customers’ requirements as could not be reached from a sitting posture.

After all, this was the tropics, and one had to be careful not to engage in too much physical exertion in the interval between hanging up one’s solar topee on arrival at office or store and taking it down again on departure.

Such were the jobs to which a small proportion of my school leavers aspired in the 1920’s and 30’s, and my efforts to place the right bov in the right job were appreciated both by the boys and their em ployers.

I say “boys”, because although girls also attended school the idea of there being any other vocation than marriage for girls was unheard of. Indeed, teenage girls had to keep very close to mum’s apron strings until they were married off.

Most of the boys, too, on leaving school, became subsistence farmers and fishermen, for Hanuabada’s economy in those days might be described as a subsistence economy with money as an optional extra.

This is still the situation in many villages even today.

Papua’s pre-war missionary teachers are often blamed, both by Europeans and by Papuans, for the fact that they didn’t give more atten tion than they did to the teaching of English. There are several things which may be said in their defence.

Teaching of English

First, school hours were limited, and in my early years at Hanuabada a suggestion that the school week might be extended from four to five days was strenuously opposed by parents, on the ground, reasonable enough at that date, that their children had to learn to hunt, fish and grow food as well as to read and write.

Second, most of the modern methods of teaching English as a foreign language had not then been worked out, and of course there were no tape recorders or even long play records. There was practically no suitable reading material avail able; books in sufficiently easy English were infantile in content, and books suitable in content were written in too difficult English.

Third, most pupils had hardly any opportunity at all of using outside the classroom the English thev learned inside it, unless and until they took a job in town.

Fourth, an all-English curricuh would, at that time, have meant tl for the vast majority of our pup their schooling would have been dreary and meaningless waste time.

By basing our curriculum on t vernacular and teaching the ru ments of English as a subject, 1 produced no BA’s, but we also pi duced no misfits. The schooling c pupils received served to stimuli their interest in, and satisfy th curiosity about, the outside woi without unfitting them for, or mt ing them dissatisfied with, the life the village.

At the same time it did inculci some basic knowledge of simj English upon which those few w! entered European employment cot build. In those simpler days ] didn’t have to worry about “drc outs”. If our pupils dropped out school they dropped into an enviro ment in which they fitted and we happy.

Today's problems

I know that today’s problei cannot be solved in so simple manner. All I am saying is that! that time it was a sensible ai reasonable course to take.

We can hardly be blamed for n being able to foresee, back in tl thirties, that within the next decai the territory would be sucked into major war, colonialism would b come a dirty word, the Europe? population would increase tenfo and job opportunities maybe ! hundredfold, and an atmosphe would be created in which Papuai would be allowed and even ei couraged to aspire to jobs moi responsible than those of carrier round of tea and tenders of filii cabinets.

But let’s get back to those schoo

avers of mine who did get jobs, id especially to those who entered te service of the Government. Their iwly status as administration ;rvants continued into the fifties, hen a decision was reached to Imit indigenes to the Public Service, special division—the auxiliary [vision —being created for them.

Incidentally most of the founda on members of the auxiliary [vision were my ex-pupils of the venties and thirties. In the in srvening quarter of a century they’d arned quite a lot “on the job”.

They’d cured themselves of the ommie English I’d taught them and ad learned to talk like honest-to fod Australians, even to the extent P saying “good-night” when they leant “good-evening”.

Salaries must be geared

And now they went back to :hool. They attended evening lasses. They toiled over home-work i one-roomed houses, with their ounger children squalling round lem and, if they were lucky, their etter educated first-born helping lem over the hard bits. And finally mny of them qualified for admission ) the auxiliary division. As there r ere no overseas officers in this ivision, no great problem arose in stablishing a suitable salary scale Dr it.

But before long a new problem >omed. Some Papuans and New luineans were now reaching educa onal standards which qualified them 3r entry to the third and even the jcond division, and these local fficers received the same salaries as verseas officers, less certain “ex atriate” allowances.

Belatedly it was realised that this

process, if continued, would build up a fantastic salaries bill for some future indigenous government. The cry was raised that the salary scale must be geared to what the future economy of the country could afford.

Nobody seemed quite to know into what crystal ball we should peer to discover just what the future economy would be able to afford.

And the irreverent suggestion that the size of the Public Service might also have to be geared to what the future economy of the country could afford was brushed aside.

On September 10, 1964—“ Black Thursday”—a new Public Service structure was introduced. The auxiliary division was abolished and its members were transferred to the third division. Many more admini stration servants were taken into the Public Service. And a brand-new “realistic” salary scale for local officers was introduced.

The realism was so stark that most of the administration servants admit ted to the Public Service at this time had to be given “non-reduction allow ances” to prevent their remuneration

as public servants falling below the cash value of the pay and rations they had received as administration servants. Non-reduction allowances were also given to local officers already in the third and second divisions.

After a shocked pause, the Public Service Association lumbered slowly into action, and a year later the Public Service Arbitrator began to hear what became known as the local officers salaries case, the hearings of which dragged on wearily for 15 months.

Odd stories told

In the meantime, in an effort to meet widespread dissatisfaction and at the same time to short-circuit, if possible, the arbitration marathon, the Administration introduced, in July, 1966, a revised scale with a new component, a “family needs allowance”, designed to boost the pay of low-level local officers with families to support. Then, at long last, the local officers’ salaries case came to an end, and, in July of this year, a further revised scale, based

on the arbitrator’s finding, was in troduced.

Not long after this I began to hear some odd stories of local officers who were getting less in their pay packets than they got before all the ballyhoo began. I started to ask questions, and eventually asked one in the House of Assembly.

The answer came tardily, and when it did come revealed an astonishing state of affairs. Out of more than 12,000 local officers, 7,172 were receiving more take-home pay than before, 1,745 were receiving exactly the same, and 3,227 were receiving less.

How is it possible in this Alice in-Wonderland service to get a rise and find less in your pay packet?

Here is an actual case: “X” is a married man with a family to support. In 1964 he was an administration servant, on pay and rations. In 1965 he was admitted to the Public Service, and, as his salary on the Black Thursday scale would have been considerably less than the cash value of his pay and rations as an administration servant, he was given a non-reduction allow ance to bring his total remuneration up to its former level. His score now stood at Salary $640 Non-reduction allowance . $340 $9BO p.a.

In July, 1966, family needs allow ances were introduced, and “X” qualified for one. His non-reduction allowance was reduced accordingly, and his score now looked like this: Salary $640 Family needs allowance $290 Non-reduction allowance . $ 50 $9BO p.a.

In July, 1967, as a result of the lecision handed down by the arbitra te, he got a salary rise. His score :ard now reads: Salary $7OO needs allowance $230 allowance . $ 50 $9BO p.a.

But because his salary has gone ip he now has to make an increased ontribution to the retirement benefits und. So every alternate Friday he nds himself with 10 cents less in is pay than he got in 1965.

Ten cents may not seem a lot, but > a man trying to provide for a amily on less than $2O a week, very cent counts. And of course this

is not all. Since the beginning of this year he has had to pay two cents in the dollar income tax—the so-called mini-tax. His tin of bully beef costs him a third more than it did two years ago. And the mini mum charge for water in Port Moresby has just gone up 100 per cent., from 50 cents to $1 a month.

“X” and his mates are the new Light Brigade. Every time they get a rise their pay packets get lighter.

Those who are inclined, from their comfortable expatriate homes or their plush offices in the Department of Territories, to lambast the Public Service Association for not being willing to “accept the umpire’s decision” would do well to ponder the plight of the Light Brigade.

“X” needs their prayers. Any time now he may get another rise; and he just can’t afford it.