FULL RESTORATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 223, 20 September 1935, Page 8

FULL RESTORATION.

P. AND T. OFFICERS' CLAIM.

RESOLUTION OF PROTEST. • At a largely-attended meeting of the Post and Telegraph Employees' Association held last evening, over which the section chairman, Mr. A. C. Wells, presided, the following resolution was passed:— "That in view of the returning prosperity and the buoyant state of the Dominion's finances, and also the fact that officers of the P. and T. Department were among the first section of the community to be penalised by the infliction of cuts during the years 19311932, this meeting of members of the P. and T. Association emphatically protests against the Government's proposal to increase salaries only by 7} per cent from October 1, and resolves to press our justifiable claims to the fullest degree for full restoration and retrospective payment of same from April 1."

In support of the resolution it was stressed that the amount required from the Consolidated Fund for the 7 J per cent increase the Government proposed to make was a matter of a few hundred pounds only. The major portion was balanced by the contribution from the Post and Telegraph Department's own revenue. This was a most important factor appreciated bv but a few of the general public and business men, who had been more or less misled by the inference that the cost of the salary increase was to bo borne by the Consolidated Fund.

Speakers said that the Post and Telegraph workers were dismayed by the paucity of the increase as compared with the magnitude of the cuts, and many members of the service expressed strong indignation at the lack of consideration for their case, which it was felt was a particularly strong one.