Journal criticised
A belief that the Public Service Association is undemocratic and that its journal contains irrelevant material prompted a Christchurch delegate, Mr Ray Spring, to send back 25 copies of the August edition not collected by his fellow members.
Mr Spring (above) believes that the journal is being taken over by minority groups, contains irrelevant material, and that the P.S.A. takes stands on issues without the consensus of its members.
“The P.SA. has a position on virtually everything from South African blacks to abortion, none of which is adequately discussed by the members, or even the delegates,” Mr Spring said yesterday. “The average member has little or no say.”
Block voting and the failure of members to attend section committee meetings contributed to this, he said. The P.S.A. was losing support and many public servants were not members.
Mr Spring said he had expressed these concerns at section committee meetings and had written to the editor of the journal several years ago. However, an article on homosexuals in the August edition was “the last straw.”
This was totally irrelevant. He believed that the journal should contain information on the conditions of work and employment. Mr Spring, a technical engineer employed by the Ministry of Works and Development in Christchurch and a section committee member, was given 27
copies of the journal to distribute among 50 members. He refused to distribute it, but issued a memorandum to members stating his reasons and saying that they could collect their copies if they wished. Only one person collected his copy. Two others considered his behaviour to be censorship, he said. Another 20 supported him. Taking up a P.S.A. recom-. mendation that members should return a Government leaflet on State pay changes, Mr Spring yesterday sent 25 uncollected copies of the August Journal back to the president of the association. He kept one copy himself. He hoped that the editor would be assigned to other duties and that the format of the journal would be
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19830905.2.26
Bibliographic details
Press, 5 September 1983, Page 4
Word Count
332Journal criticised Press, 5 September 1983, Page 4
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Copyright in all Footrot Flats cartoons is owned by Diogenes Designs Ltd. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise these cartoons and make them available online as part of this digitised version of the Press. You can search, browse, and print Footrot Flats cartoons for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Diogenes Designs Ltd for any other use.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.