OVERTIME ISSUE Dept changes ruling

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 18

OVERTIME ISSUE Dept changes ruling

The State Service Commission and the Marine Department have ruled that a Christchurch engineersurveyor employed by the Marine Department who has been instructed to work overtime at the Chatham Islands this week-end, will receive only 20 per cent of his salary at ordinary rate for work done today, and will be allowed a maximum of eight hours off in lieu of work done tomorrow.

This decision was conveyed to the chairman of the Canterbury section of the Public Service Association (Mr J. O. Trevor) yesterday. On Thursday, the engineer surveyor was told that he would neither be paid nor allowed time off later for the

overtime he had been instructed to work. He is at present surveying fishing boats and other vessels at the Chatham Islands. “I can only say that the decision, despite its illegality—as it is in complete contravention of the industrial award in which the engineer surveyor works—is contemptuous and highly inflammatory,” said Mr Trevor. The engineer surveyor who is the subject of the dispute between the P.S.A. and the Marine Department and the State Services Commission, was entitled under his award to receive time' and a half for the first three hours worked today and double time thereafter, and double time for all the hours worked on Sunday, Mr Trevor said. The Canterbury section of the P.S.A., of which the man is a member, has instructed him that under no circumstances is he to work overtime under the new offer, which the P.S.A. says is illegal. Mr Trevor said it was

■ “appalling” that such a decision could have been made [ after the concern expressed •by the association. “It has . certainly hardened the atti- > tude of all public servants in ■ this district towards any ■ tolerance of the employing I authority,” he said. The P.S.A. knew it had the fullest co-operation in the • matter from all trade unionists.

Bank trustees.—The following have been reappointed trustees of trustees savings banks: Messrs G. R. Burrowes and E. S. F. Holland (Canterbury Savings Bank), L. E. Kerr and C. E. Thomson (South Canterbury Savings Bank) and F. W. Baillie (Westland Savings ’Bank).