PUBLIC SERVICE SALARIES

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28133, 23 November 1956, Page 12

PUBLIC SERVICE SALARIES

Association Seeks Increases RISES OF £2O TO . £285 A YEAR (New Zealand Press Association) * WELLINGTON, November 22. Higher salaries for employees in the clerical division of the Public Service, “notably by lengthening the scale of the basic grade and by increasing the automatic maximum of that grade,” are requested by the Public Service Association in a wage application made before the Government Service Tribunal today. The advocate for the association (Mr J. Turnbull) said that the efficiency of the service “has been and is being seriously prejudiced and undermined by- the inadequacy of the present salary structure.” i The association was appearing before the tribunal with a major wage application for the first time since 1953. Salary increases averaging about £2O a year are requested for officers in class VI, the lowest, which also has the largest number of employees. The association asks for increases varying from £220 to £285 a year in classes V, IV, and 111, where promotion is not automatic. It also seeks equal pay for women, which would involve the abolition of the present "initial maximum’’ for women at the eighth salary step in class VI. It seeks, in addition, the deletion of the existing provision for the maximum hourly and annual rates which apply to officers earning overtime and penal rates. The members of the tribunal are Judge Stilwell (chairman), and Messrs B. L. Dallard and J. W. G. Davidson, with Messrs L. A. Atkinson as employer’s assessor, and J. T. Ferguson, as employees’ assessor. Messrs B. Hope and L. D. Smith appear for the Public Service Commission. The following new salary scales are requested:— Class Vl.— Automatic promotion requested in 14 steps, from £320 to £950 a year for men and women. The existing scale starts at £270 and goes up in 11 automatic steps to £735 for men, and in eight steps to an “initial maximum” of £6OO for women. The increases asked for in most cases are about £2O a year at each automatic promotion step. Class V.— ln place of the existing five promotion steps from £640 to £B2O a year, two salary steps are applied for, one at £lOOO and the other at £lO5O.

Class IV.—Two salary steps at £llOO and £ll5O are requested in place of the existing steps of £B6O and £9OO. Class Hl.— Two salary steps, at £l2OO and £1250, are requested, compared with the existing steps of £935 and £965. Mr Turnbull said that the association was asking the tribunal “to prescribe a remedy for the pernicious anaemia which, in depriving the service of young blood, is depriving it of the qualities of energy and initiative that are essental to efficiency.” The losses in the last eight years of male staff from the clerical division of the Public Service had been three and a half times the male cadet recruitment. he said.

“It is also apparent that, if every cadet recruited over the eight years had been retained in the service, they would still be insufficient to make good the losses in class V and above.” Mr Turnbull said that the turnover of staff had been at a high level, and on the records available, the service could expect that of 2291 school certificate male cadets recruited from 1944 to 1954, no more than 595, or little more than a quarter, would remain by 1959. “Quite Inadequate” Salaries “It is perfectly obvious that the present salary structure is quite inadequate to attract to the service and retain in it anything remotely approaching an adequate number of the type of youth that the service sets out to recruit,” said Mr Turnbull. The salary scales for which the association was applying differed very little from the minimum scales operated by the trading banks up to the tenth salary step. The principal difference was that the association sought to reach the banks’ automatic maximum in 14 years instead of 18. Supporting the case for equal pav for women. Mr Turnbull said: “There is not the slightest doubt that the employment of women in the clerical division has saved the division from collapse, or. alternatively, it is the factor which has enabled the Public Service Commission to deny to its male staff the improvements that other comparable employers were forced to give to theirs.”

Tomorrow morning the tribunal will question Mr Turnbull on his submissions. after which it will adjourn. It will hear the Public Service Commission’s reply to the case about the middle of December. It seems unlikely that the tribunal’s decision will be given till the New Year.