THE POST OFFICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 177, 28 July 1934, Page 10

THE POST OFFICE.

POSITION OF STAFFS.

CONCERN ABOUT REGRADING.

ACTION BY ASSOCIATION.

For some time past members of the Post and Telegraph service have been seriously perturbed at the postponement of the quinquennial reclassification and regrading of the staffs, which was duo this year, states Mr. S. Mather, section secrefary of the Post and Telegraph Employees' Association. Legislation was passed in tho dying hours of the last session of Parliament giving Cabinet authority to postpone the reclassification. This is an issue quite separate from that of "salary cut restoration," representations about which have already been made to tho Government in conjunction with other service organisations. That a periodical investigation of the service is an imperative necessity was recognised as far back as 1918, says Mr. Mather, when Sir Joseph Ward was Postmaster-General in a National Government. Legislation was then passed having for its intention the regrading of the various classes at periods of not longer than live years. In the following year a genuine attempt was made to carry out the spirit of the legislation, and as a result members of the service were given salaries and conditions nearer what they were entitled to. Since that time there has been little or no attempt to do justice to the Post and Telegraph servants, very many of whom now find themselves in the position of being required to carry out most important, exacting and responsible duties at salaries that any outside business firm would scorn to pay and expect efficiency.

The 'whole question was considered recently by the Dominion executive committee of the P. and T. Employees' Association, and a policy resolution adopted affirming the principle that officers "should be remunerated on the basis of the value of services rendered, with complete elimination of extraneous influences." The resolution further stated: "As the services have been, and are, steadily expanding and becoming more varied and exacting , on the individual ability and versatility of officers, it has become increasingly necessary that a proper system of valuation, of positions and classes of work should be followed, and that such system should provide for a thoroughly comprehensive review of the whole staff in periods that are of no greater duration than are required to establish the degree of sound expansion of business, in which efficiency and zealous eervices are important contributorv factors."

The resolution called upon the Government to proceed with reclassification without further delay.

The association intends to make a determined effort to secure a satisfactory reclassification and regrading of the service this year, and the question is being diecuesed at meetings throughout the service. The matter will be immediately represented to the Direc-tor-General, Mr. G. McXamara, upon his return next month from the Postal Conference.