CHEESE FACTORY OR RAILWAY

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23752, 25 September 1942, Page 3

CHEESE FACTORY OR RAILWAY

MANPOWER COMMITTEE’S DECISION

Whether a man already exempted from the Army by the Armed Forces Appeals Board to carry on as a railway porter should be allowed to leave his job during the busy season and work in the Cloverlea cheese factory was the question that arose when the Industrial Manpower Committee heard a case yesterday wherein the district traffic manager of the Railways Department appealed against the decision of the manpower officer in granting permission to Erie Dickson Johnston to terminate his employment as a railway porter at Springfield. Mr K. G. Archer presided, and with him were Messrs Ei. Lee and P. J. Kelly. Mr G. H. McLean, district traffic manager, said that Johnston had more than three years’ experience and was regarded as a skilled man. Normally there would be 291 porters in the district, but now there were only 197. The margin of safety was at stake if further shortages occurred. Mr G. E. Hicks, for the Department of Agriculture, said that every dairy factory in the province was two or three men short, and Johnston had had experience at the skilled work of cheesemaking before he joined the railways. Mr M. Ross, the manpower officer, said that alter looking into the circumstances of the case he had decided to give the man permission to go to the factory for the busy season. It was decided that as the Armed Forces Appeal Board had already adjourned sine die an appeal by the Railway Department for Johnston he should now continue in that work. An appeal by J. J. Barry for permission for his son, Arthur Patrick Barry, to leave the employ of Sucklings. Ltd. (on the grounds of illhealth), was adjourned on condition that Barry take steps to have the case considered by the apprenticeship committee.