PUBLIC SERVANTS MEET

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25660, 24 November 1948, Page 5

PUBLIC SERVANTS MEET

ADDRESS BY MR J. P. LEWIN

CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED IN EXECUTIVE

A five-page typed document setting out the Public Service Association’s negotiations with the Government on salaries is to be sent to all members of the House of Representatives. This step was decided on by the 10 State service organisations when the Cabinet committee did not agree, at a meeting yesterday, to the terms of a compromise offered to it. Mr J. P. Lewm, president of the association, announced this decision at a meeting of public servants in Christchurch last evening. About 1000 persons, including some from departments not under coiwnw-' sion control, and others from outside centres, attended the meeting. “After persistent pressure for several months, the Government has had prised out of it an unequivocal negation of the recommendations made b£ the margins and anomalies committee, Mr Lewin said. “This decision has deprived employees of not less than £2,000,000 in take-home money. “The attitude of the association to the proposed tribunal is not changed. We ask for a durable and suitable machinery to determine wares from time to time. We oppose the bill, first, because it is drafted in contemot and disregard of the views of employees, and is hopelessly restrictive, and because it is drawn across the settlement of our just salary claims at a time when the Government has failed to make good a specific promise to give a serious decision on these recom-

mendations. “If, after every effort has failed, the Government refuses to refrain from inflicting this injustice on us, we are left only one alternative—putting the full facts of the case in the hands of all members of Parliament,’’ said Mr Lewin. “That was the decision of the 10 State organisations.” It was decided last evening that the factual statement should be released to members. to the general public, and to members of the association,* if the Government failed to agree to a rock bottom compromise, the terms of which were (1) that the negative decision of the Government on all ratea should be revoked; (2) that the Government should give a prompt decision on the rates for labourers and tradesmen; (3) that the disputed rate* for basic grade clerks and margins generally should be referred to the Railways Tribunal, which dealt with them in respect of all services in 1944, this tribunal to be empowered to bring down a decision to have a universal application to all State services, and all the evidence before the margins and anomalies committee to be placed before it x “The 10 State organisations met the | Cabinet committee this morning. The sole concession gained was that if any 1 employees suffered hardship through delay, a decision would be given as quickly as possible.” A number of motions, moved by representatives of a cross section of the public services, including the Hydro-electric Department, clerical and other general division workers, were moved. While they were being discussed, Mr Lewin criticised members for leaving the hall before the business was completed.

Included in the resolutions was a vote of confidence in the executive. Another called for further meetings of other sections to instruct the executive about further action. A third stated: “That this meeting brand the Government’s refusal to accept the recommendations as a betrayal of public servants as well as a breach of the Government’s promise to pay salaries at least equal to the prevailing rates in industry.”