CORRUPTING THE JUNIORS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18194, 3 October 1924, Page 10

CORRUPTING THE JUNIORS.

TO THE BDITOB OP "THE PRESS." Sir,:—May I be allowed some space* please, to put before your readers some other aspects of the (evidently) important circular suggestion made to junior members of the P. and T. Association by myself as secretary of the organisation P Quite clearly there was: more point to the circular than your leader writer cares to admit. Otherwise would the Postmaster-General have gone to the trouble he has in preparing his reply and in broadcasting it to the leading newspapers of the Dominion ? Would these leading newspapers have given a column of spaoe each, and many of them leaders'and sub-leaders, if the circular suggestion did not make it unmistakaibly clear to the official recipients why their claims to better wages could not be acceded to? i I leave your readers -to answer these J two questions for. themselves > but I would lite to make it clear to them at the same time that all Post an J Telegraph officers are not well paid, and that, as regarcta quite.a number of them, they are. not . even paid in . conformity with outside experience. To begin with, there are some, hundreds of temporary employees, who are Eaid only £3 13s 4d per week of .44 ours, when the Arbitration Court's basic wage for the same hours and the same class of work is £3 17s. The weekly deficiency of 3s 8d would go a long way towards meeting the baker ? s bill, and means a lot to the families | of these men. Then, as regards the juniors: The Arbitration Court, pro- j vides, in most of its awards, for an apprenticeship of five years, at the close of which tie worker is entitled to expect the minimum wage of his trade—m the vicinity of £4 10s per week. This means that any apprentice entering his trade at 16 years of age or less, .can expect £4 10s per week on attaining 21 years. If this is the case outside the Post Office, why not inside, where the positions are of a skilled nature? Yet it is not the case —very far from it. The latest issue of the Classification List, which incorporates all tie upward adjustments covered by the £IOO,OOO referred to by you, shows scores of young men in thfeir twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second years receiving £2 2s and £2 7s per week, out of which they have to make superannuation contributions. As unskilled workers outside they would be entitled to £3 17s per week. _As skilled workers they would be getting £4 10& per week or thereabouts, for they all have at least five, many of them have six, and some of them have seven, years' service behind tbem. Surely the protests of workers in this position are to be listened to. I submit'to you that you have made a mountain out of the minor offence (if it is one) of the/issue of the circular letter to them, to gloßs over the major one of wage-cutting which is prevalent in the Post - and Telegraph service at the present time.—Yours, etc. H. E. COMBS, Secretary N.Z. P. .and T. Officers' Association. f Wellington, October list, 1924.