GOOD FRIDAY TEAMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 89, 14 April 1908, Page 8

GOOD FRIDAY TEAMS.

V SUNDAY SERVICE TO BE j OBSERVED. MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. TRAMWAY MEN'S VIEWS. ■ Afc the last meeting of tho City Council it was decided to support tho Train- > ways Committee in a recommendation that on Good Friday the trams should Tim us on Sunday, meeting tho trains in the morning. That decision, howover, does not apparently meet with the approval of tho tramway employees, and recently they, as a union, wrote to the Council on the subject. They regarded the decision of the Council, they said, as somewhat unreasonable, and, in lodging a formal complaint, asked tho committee to reconsider the matter and that it should be laid down as a general principle that Christmas Day and Good Friday, should be observed as holidays on the trams. Aiso the sepretary of the union wrote to Mr. Richardson, the electrical engineer, asking him to call for volunteers to do the work on Good Friday instead of posting up the roster in the ordinary way, as "there were a good number of employees who did not desire to work m the usual way. To this Mr. Richardson made a memo. — "If we ask for volunteers we may get no response or not sufficient men and officers to run the service. The men are paid for the day's work whether they work ov not; if they work they get an ordinary day's pay in addition." The matter, being of immediate im.portance, was brought before a special meeting of the City Council this afternoon, when there were present the Mayor (Hon. T. W. Hislop), and Councillors Morrah, Luke, Fisher, Hales, Biss, Cohen, Ballinger, Smith, Fletcher, and M'Lareu. In answer to a question the Electrical Engineer stated that last Good Friday the trams were run at a slight loss. The total takings -were £243. The Mayor remarked that they had to pay the men whether the trams ran or not. Councillor Luke : How about tho public convenience! Councillor Cohen : How many were carried last Good Friday? The Mayor : 34,000 penny tickets were issued. Councillor Luke thought that this was an extraordinary position to put the council in at the last moment. If any one had strict religious scruples against working on that day perhaps one would admire and sympathise with them, but he for one objected to the service being closed up entirely on Good Friday. It was rather late in the day for the employees to practically intimate that they were not going to fall into line with the wishes of the council. He moved that the service on Good Friday be as recommended by the Tramway Committee and agreed to by the council. iThe motion was seconded by Councillor Cohen, who remarked : "If the employees refuse to work we shall know what- course, to take." Councillor M'Laron said it was all very well to speak about the general publicj but if they took the general public in the bulk they found that often it was very unfeeling. People who' might be very scrupulous in regard to holidays for themselves, and looked for a month's vacation, reckoned at the same time that the public convenience (meaning thereby their • own convenience) should be carefully attended to on all occasions. He moved aa an amendment that a full day's holiday be granted to the tramway employees on Good Friday. In the course of the discussion that ensiled Councillor Ballinger urged that double fares should be charged on Good Friday to make up for the loss. The Mayor said he thought it was a pitx. that the council had not more time to consider the matter. There was, he thought, something to be said from the men's point- of view. Tho employees ought to have let the council have their views earlier. After further discussion Councillor Luke's motion for a Sunday service on Good Friday was carried.