CONFERENCE OPENS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 253, 22 July 1936, Page 6

CONFERENCE OPENS

Railway Officers’ Institute Most of the business transacted at the opening of the annual conference of the New Zealand Railway Officers’ Institute yesterday was of a routine nature, and a start will be made to-day with some of the important questions on the agenda. The president, Mr. E. W. Barnes, is presiding. The General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. H. Mackley, the Assistant General Managers, Mr. E. Casey and Mr. H. Valentine, and Mr. J. R. Robertson, a past president of the institute, attended the conference in the morning. An apology for non-attendance was received from the Minister of Railways, Hon. D. G. Sullivan, who indicated his intention of being present at a later stage.

The chairman of the Wellington branch, Mr. W. Hamilton, welcomed the delegates to Wellington, and outlined the social arrangements.

Mr. Mackley spoke on various aspects of railway administration as it affected the department and also the public. The annual report showed that the membership of the organisation was 2608, as compared with 2563 in 1935 The result of the past year’s activities was that a surplus of £247/16/4 had been placed to the credit of the accumulated fund, which now amounted to £8998/2/8.

“Repeated requests have been made to the general manager and the Railways Board respecting the injustice that the continued delay in regrading has inflicted on members of the service,” continued the report. “By public announcement the Prime Minister has agreed to authorise the regrading as soon as other important policy questions are disposed of. “A promise was obtained from the general manager and the acting-chair-man of the late Government Railways Board that the institute would be given an opportunity of perusing the regrading proposals before they were finally approved by the department. While regretting that the general manager has, by comparison with the controlling authorities of the other branches of the Public Service done less by special regradings to remove the many anomalies now existing in our service the committee is confident that it has exerted the maximum pressure to remedy the injustice a substantial number of our members are under from a grading point of view.”