NO STRIKE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18577, 30 December 1925, Page 6

NO STRIKE.

TRAMWAYMEN'S BALLOT. OVERWHELMING MAJORITY. The trams will be winning on New Year's Day, an overwhelming majority of the tramwaymea having voted against a strike. The ballot papers were counted last evening, at a meeting of the executive of the Union, and the secretary (Mr E. Snow) intimated the result at 10 p.m. "Did a largo proportion of the men vote?" ho was asked. "The only information I can give you is that an overwhelming majority was in favour of no strike. That is my instruction," was tho response. It is stated that the knowledge that the Tramway Board has a waiting list of about thirty men who are seeking work has had a steadying effect even on the votes of those men whose inclination it would otherwise have been to favour direct action. What "Pin-pricking" Means. Some of the grievances of the tramwaymen were given by men in the service to a "Press'' representative yesterday. Chiefly they allege that they are subjected to "pin-pricking," by which term they describe such annoyances as are caused them by a too rigid enforcement of regulations. They havo also complaints about having had to work some unduly long days during the Christmas holidays, sometimes as long as 12 or 13 hours. "At the end of such a period of dutv," said one conductor, "we are naturally not so wide-awake to all the regulations as when we start the day's work, and that is where the pin-prick-ing comes in." One conductor, he said, after having been 13 hours on duty, sat down for a few minutes when coming in late on a tram on a long suburban run. An inspector boarded the tram, found tho conductor on the seat taking a short rest, and issued a sharp reprimand. A few days later another rebuke came along from headquarters. "That is the sort of thing we don't like," ho concluded.