RAILWAY SERVANTS PROTEST

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11546, 31 March 1903, Page 6

RAILWAY SERVANTS PROTEST

(PRESS ASSOCIATION* TELEGRAM.) DUNKDIN, March 30. At a meeting of the Otago branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the following resolutions were passed: — (1) "That, the meeting views with alarm the growing tendency on the part of the Department to inflict heavy punishments for nominal offences, and that it respectfully to e.nter a strong, protest against the practice, as it deems such a course is inconsistent with the spirit of justice that should govern the management in its dealings with the men, and because it is conducive to the suppression of reports of minor offences, and has a tendency to strain the good relations hitherto existing between the department and its employees ; (2) that the meeting is strongly of opinion, in the interest of justice and fair treatment, that the second division should have a representative selected from the ranks of its own members on the Departmental Boards of Inquiry, the right to select such representative to rest with the member or members interested in each case; (3) that the practice of suspending men before an inquiry, particularly in cases of fatal accidents, is held to be wrongful in principle and should be discontinued, inasmuch as it is liable to prejudice the cases of members immediately concerned, and tr> discredit them in the eyes of the public ; (4) that it be pointed out to the management that a great deal of mental "worry and anxiety is caused by what members consider unreasonably long delay in holding departmental and Appeal Board inquiries, and in communicating the decisions of the sam** to the members concerned."