WAGE INCREASE SOUGHT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27065, 13 June 1953, Page 8

WAGE INCREASE SOUGHT

CLAIMS OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES Claims for a basic wage of £l2 a week, with margins preserved, were made in a resolution passed at a wellattended meeting of members of the Amalgamated Society'of Railway Servants and the. Railway Tradesmen’s Association at the Addington railway workshops on Wednesday. The resolution, recommended that the national officers of both the bodies combine with the Engine-drivers’, Firemen, and Cleaners’ Association, and enter into-direct negotiations with the Railways Commission, immediately for the increased wage. The staff of the Addington workshops have decided to hold a stopwork meeting early next week if the service enabling employees to obtain lunches, which was stopped recently, is not recommenced early next week. A statement issued by officers of the unions said that a resolution to this effect was brought about by the manager’s instruction that the practice of messengers leaving the workshops during working hours to procure meals was to cease. Although the workshops were the largest industrial establishment in Christchurch and one of the largest in the country, there were no cafeterias or any alternative methods available to employees to obtain meals. No satisfactory explanation was offered for discontinuing this service, the statement concluded.