WORK WITHOUT PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue LXI, 12 July 1930, Page 9

WORK WITHOUT PAY.

RAILWAYMEN PERTURBED. ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTION. LEVY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT FUND. Members of the Auckland branches of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants will be called together immediately official advice is received of the proposal of the Minister of Railways, the Hon. W. A. Veitcli, that the men should give a week's work without pay. Mr. J. Elliott, chairman of the Otalmhu and Newmarket divisions, said to-day that the matter would be treated as one of the greatest urgency.

Commenting on Mr. Veitch's proposal that a week's wage should be sacrificed by every man from the general manager down-wards, to be paid in to a fund to prevent any further dismissals, Mr. Elliott said that special consideration should be given to the basic wage men.

These men, who were receiving £4 8/ a week, were paying as much as £1 a month, in some instances, to the superannuation fund, and had also to meet sick benefit, union, and lodge fees. Further, some of them were keeping comparatively large families, and they would probably be compelled to ask the grocer and the butcher and others to forego their bilk correspondingly for one week.

As the leader of one of the largest branches of the A.S.R.S. in New Zealand, Mr. Elliott made the constructive suggestive that, if it was essential to curtail the expenditure of the Department, the men would favour a 6cheme under which everyone in constant employment throughout the service should contribute to an unemployment fund on a graduated scale according to salary. For instance, if 6d a week were collected from all men in receipt of £2f>o a year, 1/ from those with £300 a year, and 6d additional for every increase of £50 upwards to the general manager, a sufficient fund would be accumulated from the 18,000 employees to enable the Department to find employment on at least several days a week for the men already dismissed. The hardship would thus be spread over the whole of the employees and would not be materially felt by any particular section.

"It will be my duty as soon ae the secretary of the A.S.R.S. receives written notification of the Minister's proposals to submit them to the employees," concluded Mr. Elliott. "When we receive that, the question of consulting the men will be made a matter of extreme urgency."