TREATMENT OF SUSTENANCE MEN

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21813, 19 June 1936, Page 17

TREATMENT OF SUSTENANCE MEN

TO THE EDITOR OT THE PRESS,

Sir,—l should like to bring to the notice of the public the disgraceful way the sustenance men are treated. Now they have to report on Tuesday morning between 8 and 10 o’clock, there being about 3000 men waiting outside in the rain for more than two hours before they can be attends,! to. Surely it could be arranged for the mem to ccme at different times in the day. This would do away with the two policemen at the doors and save a lot of fighting that goes on each week. Perhaps the Hon. H. T. Armstrong may be able to do something to bring things un to date. Failing this, I thmk it is high time the men got together and formed a Union of their own. —Yours, etc.. SUSTENANCE. June 16. 1936. [“There were not 3000 men waiting at any stage,’’ said Mr M. Ross, certifying officer, when this letter was referred to him. “Six hundred men were due to report between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., and a further batch was due after 10 o’clock. The number on that day was greater than usual because some seasonal works had ended, and because on that day a change in the system of reporting was being made. As he reported, each man was given a slip of paper instructing him when he was to report in future weeks. With the changed system the men who reported previously on Tuesday mornings will now be spread over the whole of that day. On the day to which the correspondent refers there were no policemen about, but I had two of my officers regulating the queues.”]