RAILWAYMEN PROTEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 162, 11 July 1930, Page 10

RAILWAYMEN PROTEST.

DISMISSAL OF CASUALS. "BUSINESS PEOPLE'S APATHY" ASTONISHMENT EXPRESSED. A resolution of protest against the dismissals of casual railway hands was passed at a mass meeting of railwaymen held at the Otahuhu workshops yesterday. The meeting, which is believed to be the largest of its kind ever held in New Zealand, also criticised the Auckland business community for alleged apathy in the matter of the dismissals and the scale of salaries and superannuation in the higher grades of the railway service. Mr. J. McDowell, chairman of the Otahuhu branch of the Railway Tradesmen's Association, presided. The chief speaker at "the meeting was Mr. J. Elliott, chairman of the Newmarket branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.- In addi-1 tion to the 50 men whose notice would expire this week, he said, 38 more men had received a week's notice, making 88 dismissals within a fortnight, from a totafof 1000 men employed in the Avorkshops. It appeared that the retrenchment scheme being carried out in the Railway Department was forestalling the finding of the Royal Commission now sitting. He deplored the action of responsible officers in increasing by special grade the salaries of many officers who were already in receipt of from £13 to £18 a week. The list of superannuated railway servants showed that 129 were drawing over £6 a week, 76 over £7, 47 over £S, 21 over "£lO, 11 over £12, 9 over £15, 6 over £16,1 over £22 and 1 over £40 a week. In addition to this, the salaries of 31 highly-paid officials were not-stated in the "D 3" list, which was a public document supposed to establish the pay and seniority of members of the railway service. The following resolution was carried: "This mass meeting of 900 employees of the railway workshops at Otahuhu views with surprise and astonishment the apathy of the business community of Auckland and elsewhere in allowing the Government, without protest, to dis° miss hundreds of men, thereby preventing the circulation of money and incidentally cutting off the hand which feeds both; parties. We would specially emTjhasise the fact- that scores of these

men are still suffering from the horrors of the late war end are being forced to face inevitable starvation, soup kitchens and doss houses. We are further of opinion that a penal rate should be placed on all motor traffic plying for hire adjacent to the railway tracks. "Furthermore, if v the Minister is sincere in his economic research, he will immediately investigate the worthless expenditure of £7500 on the Railway Magazine and also the comparatively huge increases which he recently granted to numbers of first division officers, some of whom had their salaries increased by creating a special gsade, made retrospective to April, 1929. Some oi these increases were given to men already in receipt of from £13 to £18 a week. This was done at a time when his own statement was that the railway revenue was deficient to the enormous extent of £1,250,000. We earnestly desire that the public be made acquainted with at least some justification for the Minister's action in elevating these officials, when the Department and the country are reported to be in financial distress and the wage, worker, who is rendering useful service to, the community; is being consigned to starvation."