P. & T. OFFICERS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18347, 2 April 1925, Page 9

P. & T. OFFICERS.

WELLINGTON SECTION. #

WAGES AND POLITICS

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON. April 1. The annual meeting of the 'Wellington section of the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association was held to-night, Mr T. P. Falconer presiding over a large attendance. The annual report stated that numbers of the service were "bitterly dissatisfied" with the existing salaries, which allowed in many cases only of the barest existence, the rank and file of the clerical grade finding itself with a salary maximum increased by only 10 per cent, over the pre-war rate to meet an admitted increase in the cost of living of 60 per cent. The report also commented strongly on the "excessively long hours" worked by the telegraph side of the service. The committee expressed a strong opinion that the largely increased work and revenue merited an increased telegraph staff. The chairman urged that public servants should confer and see if some concerted move could not be made throughout the Dominion to get some measure of redress so far as salary conditions were concerned.

The report was adopted without discussion. Secretary's Activities. A letter was received from the general secretary, Mr 11. E. Combs, stating that he had again been chosen by the Labour Representation Committee to contest the Wellington North seat, and offering to place liis resignation of the secretaryship in the .hands of the executive if desired. A resolution which was moved, congratulating Mr 1 Combs on being chosen as the Labour candidate for Wellington North, led to a long, and at times lively, debate. Mr Combs stated in his letter that 112 days of accumulated leave were due to him, and a member wanted to know why four, years' leave was allowed to accumulate when there was an assistant secretarv.

Other members urged that if the secretary had time to act as secretary to an outside organisation and take an interest as a side line in a softgoods business an investigation should be made to sec if an assistant secretary really was necessary. In reply, it was stated that these activities of t.ho secretary were not. carried on in the Association's time. Other members maintained that the political activities of the secretary tended to put the Association off-side with the general public whose support the Association wanted iu its efforts to secure better pay and conditions, and also tended to produce a feeling of antagonism between the Minister and secretary. There was a suspicion that the' secretary was taking up certain matters to serve his political euds. To this it was replied that the Association stood for full political rights for public servants, and should not deny those rights to its secretary. A member: We do not claim the right to draw pay while we are directing a political campaign instead of doing our work. A motion to go into committee and exclude the Press was defeated by an overwhelming majority. Association and Alliance.

Notice was given of a remit strongly recommending the Conference to rescind the decision to affiliate with the Alliance of. Labour. A resolution: "That this section is of the opinion that the Association should be entirely dissociated either directly or indirectly from any political party, and that the service journal should not be used in any manner for the purpose of political propaganda," was carried by a very large majority. The mover declared that tho Alliance of Labour was merely a body of political propagandists, who wanted to weld the public servants and all other employees in the country into one big organisation, so that its leaders might upset the existing forms of Government and set themselves up as dictators over the rest of the community, that the columns, of the "Katipo" had been filled with tho most Communistic matter, and he had been refused space to put the other side. There had been a persistent endeavour through tho "Katipo" to indoctrinate the whole service with the ideas of class consciousness, class warfare, and such like. ' „

The congratulatory; resolution to Mr Combs, which had been held over, was carried about 11 o'clock by a large majority in a somewhat thinned house. A resolution was also carried calling upon the Association to appoint a special committee to investigate the question of office administration, duties and pay of secretaries, annual leave, etc.