Overtime Limit Favoured

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30880, 13 October 1965, Page 3

Overtime Limit Favoured

(N Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON. October 12. The Post Office advocate (Mr T. W. Martin) told the Post Office Staff Tribunal this afternoon that where heavy expenditure of public money was involved the limitation of overtime was considered to be a necessary form of control and a reasonable tool of management. The department had a responsibility to ensure that expenditure was subject to firm control and to curb upward trends. Another consideration was the effect of excessive overtime on officers’ health and daily job performance, he said. Mr Martin said the principle of limiting annual earning was used as a control measure by departments under the control of the State Services’ Commission and by the Railways Department. RECENT CLAIMS A recent claim by the P.S.A. to the State Services Commission on a number of matters had included a request for the removal of the annual limit to the total amount earned. The claim had been settled in conciliation with no alteration to the existing limitations, which were similar to those used by the Post Office, he said. The main employing authorities in the Government felt that limitations were desirable and that any relaxation in one quarter would undoubtedly have widespread repercussions. Statistics did not substantiate the claim by the Post Office Association titat the provision of a special salary margin for long-serving second division Post Office

workers would reduce staff turn-over, Mr Martin told the Tribunal yesterday. The association’s representative, Mr I. E. Reddish, had said that the department was losing many good officers because of the salary limitation. INCIDENCE FALLS “Figures show that 59.16 per cent of the people who leave the Post Office do so within three years of joining. The incidence drops appreciably over the next four years and then becomes relatively light in the various individual branches,” Mr Martin said. A recent survey of workers with comparable status had indicated that the second division non-trades group had a margin in its favour, he said. “NOT EFFECTIVE” Mr Reddish today said his association refuted any suggestion that the limitation of

earnings provided an effective control system. He said it was hard to understand why a junior officer earning £7lO a year is permitted £790 overtime, when an officer earning £lOO5 was permitted only £495 overtime. “Surely a barrier on total earnings is illogical if all staff, from junior to class II supervisor finish up on the same total,” he said. Mr Reddish said no overtime limitations were applied in the general division of the Railways. “Nor are they imposed on major construction jobs and undertaken by the Ministry of Works, It is common knowledge many tradesmen, engine drivers and guards earn in excess of £l5OO a year,” he said. “The conditions of the Post Office are surely comparable with those of the Railways Department.”