Deputy Mulcahy has given notice to raise a matter on the motion for the adjournment.
Adjournment Debate—South Tipperary Road Workers' Wages.
I gave notice that I would raise the subject matter of question No. 18 on to-day's Order Paper on the adjournment this evening. This is a matter of grave principle. It concerns a vital service in the country, the making and maintaining of the roads, a service which can give stable employment and can bring in its train a number of happy, comfortable homes throughout the country in which we could say that there was some chance for a man and his wife to rear a family in a state of Christian comfort and Christian contentment. The Minister for Local Government has taken up the attitude that he will not allow the men working on the roads in South Tipperary to be paid more than 40/- a week. Over a long period he has resisted the unanimous pressure of the members of the South Tipperary County Council. They have pressed him time after time, even to the extent of half a dozen of them wanting to come to Dublin to make representations to the Minister himself on the subject. The number of people involved will show that this is the kind of work that is vital and necessary, and that can give stable employment. In the period from January to October last, 406 men on the average were employed as ordinary road workers, 22 were employed as yard staff, 27 were employed as gangers, and 28 were employed as sub-gangers, and 80 were employed as carters. On the 1st April, 1939, the labourers were paid 35/- a week. Some time in 1940 their wages were raised to 38/- a week.
In the beginning of 1945, following a discussion at a meeting of the South Tipperary County Council, the Manager made an order increasing the general road workers' wages by 4/- a week. That would have the effect of bringing their wages from 38/- to 42/-, and increasing the carters' wages by 6/- a week. The Minister for Local Government refused to give permission to the Manager in South Tipperary to add 4/- a week to the road workers' wages, and thus bring them up to 42/-. He graciously agreed to allow them 2/- a week, and from that time their wages were fixed at 40/- a week. When I asked, on the 10th October last, why the Minister had taken that action he replied that:
"Tipperary (S.R.) County is one of the counties where the rate paid to road workers had been higher than the agricultural rate, and in view of the national importance of agriculture it was laid down that the rates for agricultural labour should be preferential. To permit a higher rate for road works would only encourage the seeking of employment on road work to the disadvantage of agricultural work. Accordingly, an additional temporary emergency bonus not exceeding 2/- a week was approved for road workers from the 1st April last when the proposal of the local authority to grant an increase of 4/- a week to road labourers and 6/- to certain other road employees had been received. The road workers' wages had already been increased by emergency bonuses to 38/- so that the additional bonuses sanctioned brought their wages up to the agricultural level of 40/- a week. In the case of carters, the bonus rate was sanctioned so as bring their pay to 12/6 per day, the maximum rate prevailing in other rural areas."
On the 30th, May the county council unanimously asked the Minister favourably to reconsider the matter, and determined that, on receipt of the Minister's reply they would come to a special meeting of the council to deal with the matter. On the 11th July, they urged that a deputation consisting of six members of the council would be allowed to come to Dublin to meet the Minister. The Minister would not allow it.
On the 22nd August they gave up all hope of influencing the Minister, and they unanimously called on the T.D.s for Tipperary to raise the question generally as to why the Minister had turned down the unanimous wishes of the Tipperary County Council. They declared that, in their minds, the action taken was entirely contrary to democratic principles and was an actual infringement of the Constitution. They were driven to do that by reason of the fact that they could not continue to look at the conditions under which the road workers in South Tipperary were labouring in which a man and his wife and two children had to live on 40/- a week.
I asked the Minister to-day if he realised that 40/- to-day was worth about 13/4 pre the 1914 war. I asked him whether any consideration had been given, or any estimate made, that would enable him to say that it was possible for a man to maintain his wife and two children on that amount. His answer to that, although he has got an additional request from the South Tipperary Council urging that an additional 6/- be given, was that he had nothing to add to what he had said on the 10th October last. Do we agree that a necessary service run by the public bodies in the various counties to provide good roads for transport, giving stable employment to a corps of workers, should have sufficient wages to enable them to settle down to make a living and to rear their families? I want to get an answer "yes" or "no" to that. If we accept it that a service of that kind should enable men to provide homes in which to rear their families, then we ought to ask, what are the wages they are getting, and if these wages, by any kind of just examination, are such as will enable those men to rear their families. I again put these two questions to the Parliamentary Secretary, and say that I am entitled to have an answer to them.
The Minister fears that workers in agriculture might be drawn to work on the roads if the wages paid to road workers were excessively high, but surely there are other occupations calling men to other countries from a vital service such as the maintenance of the roads. I am not discussing to-day the idea of agricultural wages being down to 40/-. I am talking of a vital permanent service that is there and that ought to be discussed on its own merits. If those men, not able to tolerate looking at their wives and the misery of their families on 40/- a week, want to better themselves they can get 70/- a week at agricultural work in Great Britain. If they want to join the British Army from the 1st July this year they can get 77/- per week. A trained soldier with a wife can get 77/- a week, plus a soldier's feeding, with upkeep and clothing.
What does that mean when we reduce it to terms of real wages? In this country the cost of living has risen to 298, nearly three times what it was in 1914. In Great Britain the cost is 203, twice what it was in 1914. So that, when we compare the wages that are paid to a road worker here with the wages paid to an agricultural worker in Great Britain or the wages that will be paid to a soldier in Great Britain as from the 1st July next, we find that for every 5/- the agricultural worker in Great Britain is getting the road worker here gets 2/- to live on—that is, instead of getting 70/- a week where the cost of living is only twice what it was in 1914, they are asked to live on 40/- a week where the cost of living is three times what it was in 1914—and if they join the British Army, on the new rates of pay, for every 5/- they get there, apart from their keep, including housing, clothing and food, they would get only 1/9 here.
If the Minister feels that these men are so sensitive that they would transfer from agricultural work in Ireland to road work for the sake of 1/- or 2/- in the week, how does he think that they can be so insensitive as not to go and join the British Army on the one hand or to agricultural work in Great Britain on the other, where there is such a demand for workers and where it is felt that if agricultural wages are not raised to £4 10s. a week there will be an exodus of workers from agriculture to manufacturing work?
A road worker in South Tipperary who received 35/- a week before the war began is now asked to live on 40/- a week. His wages have been increased by 5/- while the cost of living here has increased by seven times that figure. Let us take the position with regard to workers in other industries in this country. We have particulars only up to 1944. Additional increases have been given in quite a number of other industries during 1945. According to official returns, men working in the bacon industry had an average weekly earning in 1944 of 71/-, having got an increase of 9/- a week since the war began. Those working on boots and shoes earned 70/10 a week, representing an increase of 13/11. In the brewing industry, the average earnings in 1944 were 89/8, an increase of 13/6 over the pre-war rates.
The comparative figures in distilling were 71/10 a week, representing an increase of 11/10; in leather work, 74/-, an increase of 21/10; housing 76/11, an increase of 22/9; linen and cotton, 61/- an increase of 15/5; malting, 62/1, an increase of 8/11; shirtmaking, 68/7, an increase of 9/7; sugar and sugar confectionery, 75/6, an increase of 13/6; woollens, 65/6, an increase of 21/-. All down along there are increases of 21/-, 15/-, 27/4, 11/8, 16/11, 15/10, in respect of other industries in the country, by 1944, and other increases have been given since. I think everybody knows that the conditions of workers rearing their families to-day on the wages quoted for these industries are not very happy, that most of them have run into debt and that very few of them are satisfied with the kind of living they are giving their families.
With regard to the conditions in Tipperary, a recent report of the county medical officer for North Tipperary is to the effect that although farm labourers' wages have gone up and, to a smaller extent, the wages of county council workers have gone up, such increases are not sufficient to meet the increased cost of clothing, food and bedclothes, and he points out that there are few houses in the county, of working class type, where bed clothes and equipment of that particular kind are not sadly wanted. The condition of poverty in these people's homes has come under the notice of the county medical officer.
We want good work done on the roads because the roads are a vital service. There is permanent employment there. That permanent employment should support comfortable homes. What is probably happening to-day is that any men worth having on the roads are either gone away or will go away as soon as they can, and our road work will be badly done, and we will be left with the problem that it will take a very considerable amount of money to bring our roads back to a decent condition.
The attitude of the Minister for Local Government on this matter is almost impossible to understand in view of all the measures that are being taken at present for the prevention of disease, curing disease, setting up a big structure of hospitalisation, organisation of doctors, organisation of nurses in order to cure and prevent disease while, by his own Order, over the whole country, in relation to a corps of workers that we must have permanently there, he is preventing families from having an income that would enable them to feed and clothe themselves properly. The question that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government are up against is quite simple. This is a vital service, giving permanent employment to a corps of men that, in South Tipperary, is nearly 600 strong. Many of them work under difficult conditions. Many of them have to go six, seven and eight miles to their work in varying kinds of weather. The conditions in South Tipperary are typical of those all over the country. These men are kept down to a wage that I ask the Minister to justify in terms of being able to keep a family on it. If in a vital service, in respect of a corps that we must have permanently with us, we cannot say that it is possible to have families living in comfortable, permanent, Christian conditions, then I do not know what we are doing; I do not know what we have a Government for; I do not know why we are making all the grand national declarations we make from time to time.
That is a question that has to be answered and if we are going to sneer at people because they are leaving the country and not serving the country, I ask the Minister on what ground does he justify demanding of a man to stay at home, in the interests of his nation, and work for 2/- or 1/9 when he can get 5/- in Great Britain. These are questions that the Minister must answer. He must also answer this question: In a matter vitally concerning the well-being and the Christian life of our families, when the whole personnel of a county council make serious representations and show by their earnestness that they mean what they say, why should a Minister, simply by a stroke of his pen, say he is not going to allow them to do it, he is not going to see them, he is not going to give us any answer in this House except a few meaningless words that he spoke to us some months ago?
Mr. Blowick rose.
The Parliamentary Secretary must get ten minutes to reply.
I only want to ask a question. Up to Christmas last road workers in Mayo were receiving——
The Deputy must not deal with Mayo. He can only deal with the specific question.
In dealing with the question raised on the adjournment, I wish first of all to say that I have no intention of discussing here to-night the general question of what should be the ideal rate of basic minimum wages in this country. The question we are discussing is one relating to the wages of South Tipperary road workers. But I would say in passing, since Deputy Mulcahy has shown such heat, that I think this Government have demonstrated that they have done all they possibly could to overcome the difficulties arising during the emergency among the class of workers who are the subject of this debate. I think that the support we have received from the people, particularly in the last general election, demonstrates that we have no desire to crush any section of the community, but that we try to assist and promote the interests of every section of the community. Having made that general observation, I will now come to the question we have at hand.
The policy of the Minister for Local Government is that road workers' wages must be related finally and emphatically to agricultural workers' wages; that there should be no departure from that general principle. The type of work which is most comparative with road labourers' work is the unskilled agricultural labourers' work, the ordinary type of agricultural work. It is our policy not to cause competition for labour to arise by permitting the road workers' rate of wages to rise substantially above the rate of agricultural labourers' wages. For this purpose, we must make the assumption that the men who make the decision on the Agricultural Wages Board do so with an earnest sympathy for both interests concerned; that the farmers and agricultural labourers who come to these meetings consider the general position, consider what can be paid to agricultural labourers. If members of the Dáil consider that the board is not working efficiently and successfully, it is for them to raise the matter on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. The Minister for Local Government feels very strongly that there must be a definite relationship.
In the case of South Tipperary, Deputy Mulcahy has given the actual figures in relation to the rise in wages since the emergency. At the beginning of the emergency, the rate of wages for road workers in Tipperary was higher than in many other counties where there was as great prosperity. It was 35/-. It has been raised to 40/-. In February, 1945, there was a further demand for an increase which would bring the wage to 42/-. At that time the manager pointed out that road workers were paid 9½d. per hour for a 48-hour week, whereas agricultural workers were paid 9d. per hour for a 54-hour week and that he doubted whether the request would be granted. The members of the county council moved an additional estimate for £4,100 for increases in wages. The vote on that occasion was: 9 for the resolution, 4 against, and three not voting, indicating that there was not, even at that time, an absolute spirit of unanimity when it came to facing the fact of the imposition on the rates. On the 25th April, a bonus of 2/- a week was granted, the remainder being refused, and carters were granted a bonus of 3/- a week. The deputation requested was refused on the ground that no special case could be made for County Tipperary as compared with other counties.
The position is that at present in Dublin County 54/- a week is paid, and that in five counties 40/- a week is paid. As I said, they are basic wages. In 11 counties 39/- is paid, and in the remainder 38/- or below. The reason for the particular increase in Tipperary being granted was that in counties where workers were previously deprived of a bonus because the wages were already, comparatively speaking, close to the agricultural level, it was felt to be unfair that they should be deprived of some increase. That is one of the reasons for the fact that in five counties the wages are 40/-. The increase since 1939 in a great many counties has been as much as 30 per cent. It has been round about 14 per cent. in cases where the rate was already at a substantially higher level; that is to say, that in the counties where the rate was 35/- in August, 1939, the increase has not been so noticeable as in the many counties where the wage was only 28/- to 30/- and was raised to 39/-. It will be found that this increase compared to some degree with the increase offered for employment in other minor positions in connection with county council employees.
The following facts should be borne in mind in connection with the Minister's decision. As I said, there has been no recent proposal for an increase in agricultural workers' wages by the Agricultural Wages Board, except in regard to overtime, in which there has been an increase to 1/1 for over 54 hours and 1/4 on Sunday. As I said before, road workers work 48 hours approximately, as compared with 54 hours in the case of agricultural workers. There has also been no noticeable demand for an increase in the rate of wages paid to turf workers —I speak of the basic rate paid to the ordinary adult turf worker, not to specialists—which at present averages round about 42/- per week. In connection with the demand for increases in respect of road workers' wages, in the last four months we have had demands for increases from three counties, where the county manager made a preliminary order, and in four counties resolutions of a general character were passed, but were not subject to an order by the manager. Therefore, there have been no substantial or noticeable demands from county authorities as a whole in respect of road workers.
The average period of employment in South Tipperary County Council for the 402 regular workers was 45 weeks, and for the 340 part-time workers, 20 weeks. As to the comparative position of road workers and agricultural workers, they are both liable to similar conditions. Both agricultural workers and road workers, in many cases, have to go some distance to their work. The road worker only workers 48 hours, whereas the agricultural worker works 54 hours. In some cases, the agricultural workers live in, in others not. Both agricultural workers and road workers are subject to broken time. In both cases the employers adopt varying principles in regard to the payment of broken time for days on which the weather does not permit of work. There are equally varying conditions in regard to the general position. Some of them have plots attached to their houses, some have not such plots. They both benefit very largely from social services so greatly increased by the present Government.
What are they?
The Deputy is aware of the social services, and I do not propose to go into them.
What social services has a man with a wife and two children to get? Outdoor relief?
The Government's position is, now that the emergency is over and materials are coming into greater supply, we shall review continually this question. It is not the desire of the Minister for Local Government or of the Government as a whole that workers should be paid anything but the highest wage the community can afford. But, at the present time, we have to envisage an increase of expenditure on roads now that materials are available which will be reflected in an increase in the rates. In County Clare, for example, rates have already been increased by half a crown, largely owing to trying to get back to the amount of road work done in the normal way in 1938-39. It would be quite possible for too hasty a decision to be taken in the matter of the Government's attitude towards road workers' wages and the stabilisation Order and might have the effect of causing disemployment in the agricultural community because of the increase of wages to those employed by farmers. Therefore, the position will require careful and continual review.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.30 p.m. to 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 1st February, 1946.