CIVIL SERVANT’S PETITION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25309, 8 October 1947, Page 8

CIVIL SERVANT’S PETITION

PARLIAMENT

Reinstatement After War Service CLAIM BY CLIVE DRUMMOND (P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 7. Reinstatement as a permanent employee in the Public Service was sought by David Archibald Victor Clive Drummond, fadio announcer, of Wellington, in a petition presented in the House of Representatives to-day by Mr C. M. Bowden (Opposition, Karori). The petitioner claimed that there had been a substantial injustice to him by the failure of the Public Service Commissioner to reinstate him in the position he occupied in the National Broadcasting Service before he entered the Royal New Zealand Air Force and by his appointment to the temporary staff at a lower salary.

Petitioner said that before he entered the Air Force in March, 1942, he was employed as chief announcer at a salary of £540 a year. When he was discharged from the Air Force in June, 1944, he was informed by the Public Service Commissioner that there was no position for him on the permanent staff of. the Broadcasting Department, that his previous employment was not available to him. and that the Public Service Commissioner was prepared to offer him a position on the temporary staff at a salary of £425 a year. He was informed that the regulations making it incumbent on an employer to re-engage a man who had left his employment to enter the armed forces with no diminution of salary did not bind the Crown.

Drummond said that having no other mode of employment he accepted the position and was now in receipt of a salary of £485. Throughout the 21 years, excluding two and a half years’ military service, during which he had been employed in broadcasting he had on no occasion received any complaint from his superiors, but on the contrary had on many occasions received commendation.

The petitioner asked that the salary V?U os l because of the failure of • e Fublic Service Commissioner to reinstate him, namely £405, be refunded to him. He also asked that such sum as was considered proper be paid to nim as compensation for the mental worry he had experienced over the y J a S s in , seekin g to reinstate himself and for legal and other expenses he had incurred.