IS SICK LEAVE ABUSED.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 848, 21 June 1910, Page 4

IS SICK LEAVE ABUSED.

-4 REPLY TO MINISTER FOR RAILWAYS. {By Telegraph.—Special Correspondent.) Auckland, June 20. Recently the Minister for "Railways publicly stated that the privilege of payment to railway officers on "sick leave had been very much abused. This has drawn a reply from Mr. C. H. Jenkins, who says: "Mr. Millar is fortunate in that railway officers are precluded by the regulations from placing their sido of the question before the public through the medium of the press. His statement that officers have abused the of sicJc pay amounts to a charge of malingering on the part of officers. This is unfair and cruel. If it be true that the amount of sick leave has increased out of all proportion to the increased membership of the division it is also true that the extra duties placed upon the officers by the increased traffic and hours have not been met by a proportional increase of staff. The duties a railway officer is called upon to perform are of a most harass in? nature, and necessitate in most eases close application for long hours. At the end of a year an officer's brain and nerve n?ed rest. Now it is notorious that it is difficnlt for the officers to obtain their annual holiday at due elite, and it is reasonable to assume that the longer the period of continual strain and application without break the greater will be the chance of prolonged idleness when sickness does overtake an officer. The reduction of the annual holiday in proportion to the time lost through sickness will defeat its own end, as an officer deprived of part or the whole of his aivnua'l rest will be less able to combat sickness in the future. Tke Government works its officers a greater number of hours per week than any private employer would dare. Mr. Millar, in stating that the members of the service outside the first division had never been air lowed sick pay, neglected to add that the members of the second division worked a certain number of hours per week only, whilst the members of the first division have to work whatever hours the exigencies of the service demand."