- 37 ·
to keep her life intact. For instance a woman worker in a rubber shoe factory receiving a daily wc of $2 has to spend $1 on rice of extremely poor quality, 10 cents each on vegetables and salt fish, and 40/50 cents on house rental. Expenses on such articles of necessity such as oil, salt, etc. have not yet been included in the calculation. What remains to her amounts to 30 to 40 cents which is of no significant value in the sense of purchasing power.
Allowing for the fact that the average wage rate is in excess of two dollars a day and that one obtains a considerable quantity of poor quality rice for one dollar, far more than the average woman could possibly consume, this is a fair statement and throws some light on the distributions of expenditure of the lowest paid workers.
223.
In the larger European-owned establishments and the majority of the main utlities there is a much clearer wage pattern. Average daily earnings, including rehabilitation or cost of living allowances of employees in these undertakings are as follows:-
Skilled workers
$5.80 to $8.20
Semi-skilled workers
$5.00 to $6.50
Unskilled workers
$3.50 to $5.00
There is, however, less uniformity than in the past. Sa result of an award of an arbitration Tribunal arising out of a dispute between the Dairy Farm Company and their employees the workers of the Company secured an increase in remuneration amounting to $30 a month.
224.
This award was followed by cight other large employers but the Government and the Naval Dockyard declined to grant similar increases to their workpeople. As result the average usily earnings of the workers in the nine large undertakings which accepted the Arbitration award are about $1 a day higher than the amounts quoted abovc. The Engineer's Institute has told its members that this is not unreasonable as the Dockyard and the Government only have a limited allocation of money for wages and if any increase in wages was granted there would be a corresponding decrease in the volumn of employment.
225
The Government wage rates, and whatever the Government pays its workers has a profound effect upon the standards, of the Larger European firms and repercussions even on Chinese establishments, are as follows:-
Cents per Hour
Minimum
Foreman: Grade 'A'
Xaximum
70
90
Foreman 'B': Chargehand
61
70
Artisan: Grade I
38
Motor Driver
38.
50
8.80
60
rtisan: Grade II
30
.:50
72