APPEALS DECIDED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 112, 4 February 1939, Page 13

APPEALS DECIDED

Post And Telegraph Classification BOARD CRITICIZED Thirty-one Cases Succeed In Over Six Hundred The keen disappointment that is felt in the Post and Telegraph service following the announcement of the Post and Telegraph Appeal Board’s decision concerning classification and payment grievances js the subject of editorial comment in the official organ of the Post and Telegraph Employees’ Association, “Katipo.” The comment points to the overwhelming number of decisions adverse to appellants, and describes them as “staggering even to those who had some idea of how appeals are generally dealt with.

There were 873 appellants concerned with 892 appeals. Only 31 cases were successful, incluling 10 conceded by the department. A total of 625 cases on which evidence was taken were disallowed.

"Though there must have been many individual disappointments with the appeal board’s decisions as personal notifications reached the hundreds of appellants who were (and still are) dissatisfied with the value placed upon their services in the general regrading that took effect from April 1, 1937, it would be only a few officials closely associated with the board’s long .succession of sittings throughout the Dominion who could have estimated the collective disappointment that would accrue to the findings as a whole, states the "Katipo" editorial. The article states that the department has also resorted to a legal technicality to deprive officers of the second division of the full right of appeal. The legally debarred cases under this ruling are not included in the total of 625 discussed. Not since the general regrading in 1919 has this number of appeals been exceeded. At that time 545 appeals were allowed against 555 disallowed. That result is contrasted with this year’s 625 disallowed and 31 allowed. The article contends that it cannot be established that conditions of pay and promotion progress have steadily improved during the last 20 years.

Comparison With 1919-20.

“Unfortunately salary cuts, retrenchment and restrictive legislation spoilt everything in the nature of general improvements,” the article continues, “so that during IS years till the reclassification of 1937 the service collectively fell back below the 1919-20 level and individual promotions, for the shouldering of additional responsibilities, were difficult to obtain. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that when the Labour Government sanctioned steps being taken for an up-to-date review and revaluation of jobs and men’s hopes ran high and the long looked-for redress of classification and payment grievances was expected to evolve. . . .” After criticizing the general treatment of representations from the men in the services, the article concludes: “. . . Certainly the two sets of circumstances (1919 and today), though separated by a span of nearly 20 years, were very similar in certain respects; but how far they were and would be adjusted to reflect comparable degrees of justice depended upon policy influences, personal attributes and outlook, principles embraced and objects held in view by the present-day personnel handling appeals. Commencing toward the middle of July last year and travelling from one end of New Zealand to the other, it was not till late in December that the appeal board's sittings ended. In the Interim sufficient had been reported of points of procedure, rulings and odd decisions to indicate that the final results would not come up to expectations. The official statement now issued by the PostmasterGeneral, Mr. Jones, has put on record the full figure results of the board’s deliberations in the name of justice—and they are nothing to bo proud of. “Judged by the precedent of 1919 the decisions of the present appeal board are of the hard, soul-destroying type that perpetuate injustices that could and should be removed.”