P. AND T. SALARIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 261, 4 November 1929, Page 12

P. AND T. SALARIES.

REVALUATION SOUGHT.

SEPARATE TREATMENT ASKED

EEPLY TO PRIME MINISTER

(By telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

Not the restoration of the salary "cuts," but "a comprehensive revaluation of salaries," is the declared aim of the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association, which has issued a long statement on the salaries question. The executive maintains that the Prime Minister's statement on the subject in no way answers the case represented to the Prime Minister and the PostmasterGeneral, individually and jointly, by the association.

"So far as the present Government is concerned," says the executive, "the Post and Telegraph. Association has on no occasion made representations for the restoration of the salary 'cuts,' The change of Government so nearly approximated the quinquennial date for reclassification of positions and review of salary schedules that the question of restoration of salary cuts was abandoned in favour of urging a comprehensive revaluation of salaries on the true basis of the worth of services rendered on present-day money values. No Increases for Many Since 1922. "The association has always maintained that the salary 'cuts' were not justified when imposed, in 1922; neither were the cumulative effects, through officers remaining stationary ever since, visualised by the legislators at the time. The comparative rate of promotion in the respective services has made these effects more marked in the post and telegraph service than in other services; and whereas the late Prime Minister stated at election time that practically every officer had, by increments or promotion, regained the lost salary, approximately 50 per cent of the original officers in the post and telegraph service who were reduced to the lower maxima have remained stationary ever since, and all officers are still suffering by reason of the lower maxima attainable. "Therefore the association has justification for expecting and requesting that this year's quinquennial review of positions and salaries should be assessed on the increased output and responsibility that expanding services Lave demanded of every officer." Prime Minister's Assertions. The real issue, the executive maintains, is the new schedule. "The Prime Minister's statement on the question of improved Public Service salaries may be condensed into two short paragraphs. One is by the heads of Departments, and reads as follows: 'To restore the salary cuts in the several services at the present time, after making allowances for the improvements which have been granted, would cost at least £1,000,000 a year.' The other is in the Prime Minister's own words: 'The present is not an opportune time for considering any claim 3 of this nature, involving as they do an additional expenditure of more than £1,000,000 a year.' "From the foregoing it will be apparent that the Prime Minister has seized upon the maximum requests of the various services as an excuse for denying any salary improvement at all, without even conceding the respective organisations the opportunity of negotiating upon their genuine grievances. Without retracting in any degree the just claims put forward for general increases in post and telegraph salaries, the association claims th«*yt a definite improvement should have been afforded to the most necessitous and deserving of the officers concerned, and, in addition, that an assurance should have been given of serious consideration next year of the whole question. £270,000 Required. "An additional expenditure of £1,000,000, even though justly warranted, is no doubt a bogy to members of the political party now in power, but it is to be deplored that their sense of equity did not ensure something less than a flat turning down of any alleviation to the thousands of workers in the Public Service whose remuneration is numbers of instances provides them with a bare subsistence. "The sum of £68,000 would have restored those officers at the head of the rank and file classes of the Department to the figure holding before the infliction of the cuts in 1921-22 and would thus have provided a higher maximum in the future for the thousands of officers in progress to the top of their class. Assuming that the Post and Telegraph Department comprises one quarter of the Public Service, we arrive at the conclusion that a sum in round figures of £270,000, or one-fourth of that quoted by the Prime Minister, would have removed a great deal of the present discontent in all services, leaving full consideration of the various demands ae previously etated until next year." No Prospects for Many. The executive questions the statement that the present maximum salaries of lower-graded officers generally compare favourably with those ruling in outside employment. The great bulk of the rank and file of the service, it is maintained, cannot benefit without an alteration to. the present salary schedules, which is the sum and substance of the claims of the post .and telegraph employees. The general regrading of the various services has, in the case of the Department, advanced 141 officers from the £295 mark, with the promise of a further 200 officers in the near future, leaving 1725 officers still on the inadequate maximum of £295 a year. As is also the case of postmen, many of the 1725 officers will remain indefinitely without advancement. "The statement contained in paragraph seven of the committee's report," says the executive, "that restoration of the salary cuts or the general increasing of all salary ecales would have a farreaching effect, and would tend to create a false standard of values that is bound to have a reactionary effect, cannot be sustained. On the contrary, it is manifest that a maximum salary of £240 a year to a married man with responsibilities inflicts upon him a standard of living far below that which is aimed at by every right-thinking individual; anil, further, that a scale of salaries directly commensurate with the value of the work performed cannot logically create a false standard of values. "Thousands Struggling." "At present thousands of officers are struggling to obtain the bare necessities of life and any untoward expenditure or sickness places them in the direst straits. It cannot be contended that the increases sought, the justification of which is admitted by most individual members of all political parties, would place any officer in a specially-favoured

position. The post and telegraph employees, by reason of different hours of duty, conditions of service, unfavourable comparison with other Departments as regards promotion, retiring salary, etc., are seeking separate treatment. "The heavy banking up of officers at the maxima "of the rank and file classes in their Department, together with the other points of dissimilarity mentioned, demands some compensation, and the fact alone that other Public Service organisations are pressing for salary improvements more than justinee the claims of the poet and telegraph service, which is everywhere recognised as the Cinderella of the Public Service."